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Post-Doctoral Fellowships
Association of Long-Term Exposure to Air Pollution and Noise with Neurocognitive
Functions in the Heinz Nixdorf Recall Study Cohort
Investigations of the association between air pollution and ambient noise to neurocognitive
function are scarce, mostly performed on children and adolescent populations, and the results
are inconsistent. The effect of long-term air pollution and ambient noise exposures on cognitive
functions and on Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) (the intermediate state between normal
cognitive aging and dementia) in the adult population has not yet been investigated.
The post-doctoral project is performed on participants from the Heinz Nixdorf Recall Study (Risk
factors, Evaluation of Coronary Calcium and Lifestyle), a population-based longitudinal study
from three cities in the German Ruhr Area: Bochum, Essen and Mülheim/Ruhr. We estimated
exposure to the air pollutants PM
2.5
, PM
10
, and NO
2
using two types of exposure models – European
Air Pollution Dispersion and Chemistry Transport Model (EURAD-CTM), and land use regression
ESCAPE-LUR. Long-term exposure to traffic noise was modeled as weighted 24-h mean (L
DEN
)
and weighted night-time mean (L
NIGHT
) in dB(A). 4,814 randomly chosen participants (45-75 years
of age) were enrolled into the study between December 2000 and August 2003. After five years
(2006-2008) the first follow-up visit was performed, and it included a screening test of amnestic
and cognitive functioning. Five tests were used to assess the cognitive status of participants:
immediate and delayed word recall tests, clock drawing test, labyrinth test, and animal naming
test. Results of each of these tests were normalized and adjusted for age and education status of
participants based on age-specific norms of cognitive subtests for the German general population.
A global cognitive score was calculated as a sum of normalized scores of performance for the five
tests used for cognitive assessment. Of the 4086 participants that completed the cognitive tests,
579 were diagnosed with MCI (n=309 amnestic and n=283 non-amnestic MCI).
The aim of this study is to analyze the associations between long-term exposure to air pollution
and ambient noise and the following outcomes: overall MCI, amnestic and non-amnestic MCI
subtypes, each of the five cognitive tests independently, and with a global cognitive score. The
analysis will be performed using cross-sectional and longitudinal study designs.
Research publications
(1)
Tzivian, L., Winkler, A., Dlugaj, M., Schikowski, T., Vossoughi, M., Fuks, K., Weinmayr, G., & Hoffmann, B.
(2014). Effect of long-term outdoor air pollution and noise on cognitive and psychological functions in adults.
Review article.
International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health
. doi: 10.1016/j.ijheh.2014.08.002
Fellow
Lillian Tzivian
IUF Leibniz Research
Institute for
Environmental Medicine,
Germany
Supervisor
Barbara Hoffmann
2013-2015