A Prospective Study of Atherosclerosis, Clinical Cardiovascular Disease, and Long-Term Exposure to Ambient Particulate Matter and Other Air Pollutants in a Multi-Ethnic Cohort (MESA Air)

Background/Aims:‘MESA Air’is a multi-center prospective cohort study of air pollution and cardiovascular disease (CVD) launched in 2004, combining state-of-the-art cardiovascular outcome measurements with individual-level exposure assessment. The central hypothesis is that long-term exposure to airborne fine particulate matter is associated with accelerated atherosclerosis and risk of clinical cardiovascular events.Methods: MESA Air builds on the framework of the NHLBI Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA). MESA studies risk factors (and evidence of pre-clinical processes) that predict development of clinical CVD among individuals without pre-existing disease. MESA Air adds to MESA individual-level exposure estimates that integrate spatio-temporal modeling of outdoor air concentrations, participant-specific predictions of residential pollutant infiltration efficiency, and time-location patterns. MESA …