Machine learning–driven identification of early-life air toxic combinations associated with childhood asthma outcomes
Yan-Chak Li, … , Gaurav Pandey, Supinda Bunyavanich
Yan-Chak Li, … , Gaurav Pandey, Supinda Bunyavanich
Published October 5, 2021
Citation Information: J Clin Invest. 2021;131(22):e152088. https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI152088.
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Machine learning–driven identification of early-life air toxic combinations associated with childhood asthma outcomes

Abstract

Air pollution is a well-known contributor to asthma. Air toxics are hazardous air pollutants that cause or may cause serious health effects. Although individual air toxics have been associated with asthma, only a limited number of studies have specifically examined combinations of air toxics associated with the disease. We geocoded air toxic levels from the US National Air Toxics Assessment (NATA) to residential locations for participants of our AiRway in Asthma (ARIA) study. We then applied Data-driven ExposurE Profile extraction (DEEP), a machine learning–based method, to discover combinations of early-life air toxics associated with current use of daily asthma controller medication, lifetime emergency department visit for asthma, and lifetime overnight hospitalization for asthma. We discovered 20 multi–air toxic combinations and 18 single air toxics associated with at least 1 outcome. The multi–air toxic combinations included those containing acrylic acid, ethylidene dichloride, and hydroquinone, and they were significantly associated with asthma outcomes. Several air toxic members of the combinations would not have been identified by single air toxic analyses, supporting the use of machine learning–based methods designed to detect combinatorial effects. Our findings provide knowledge about air toxic combinations associated with childhood asthma.

Authors

Yan-Chak Li, Hsiao-Hsien Leon Hsu, Yoojin Chun, Po-Hsiang Chiu, Zoe Arditi, Luz Claudio, Gaurav Pandey, Supinda Bunyavanich

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Figure 1

Study overview.

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Study overview. Exposure data for over a hundred air toxics from the US ...
Exposure data for over a hundred air toxics from the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) National Air Toxic Assessment (NATA) database were geocoded to AiRway in Asthma (ARIA) cohort participants with mild to severe persistent asthma (n = 151), based on participants’ residential zip code. The Data-driven ExposurE Profile extraction (DEEP) method developed in this study was then applied to the air toxic data to identify multi–air toxic combinations associated with 3 childhood asthma outcomes: use of prescribed daily asthma controller medication, lifetime emergency department visit for asthma, and lifetime overnight hospitalization for asthma. In the first stage of DEEP, multi–air toxic combinations were identified via eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) models consisting of decision trees. In the second stage, multivariable logistic regression models were used to identify air toxic combinations significantly associated with childhood asthma outcomes after adjustment for age, sex, race and ethnicity, and family income. (Some images in this figure were obtained from the open-source collection at https://www.flaticon.com and were made by Wanicon, Freepik, and flaticon.)