Research Journal 2

What is your topic? Or what are your key words thus far?

My topic is about respiratory health in areas with high amounts of air pollution and the short and long term effects.

What is your research question? Have you decided to change it at all? And, if you have, how do I know that the way in which this question is formulated is appropriate to conduct a literature review with a systematic approach? 

My question is: What effect does living in an area with a high concentration of air pollutants have on the function of the respiratory system. 

And what are the definitions on which it depends?

My question depends on multiple key terms.

Air Pollution: the presence in or introduction into the air of a substance which has harmful or poisonous effects.

Respiratory Health: The current health of the entire respiratory system, including lungs, respiratory tract, bronchi, etc. 

Asthmatic: A person who is suffering from asthma.

Cohort: A type of medical research used to investigate the causes of disease, establishing links between risk factors and health outcomes.

What is your hierarchy of evidence? And how do I know you going about finding the most appropriate evidence/method for your research question?

Because of the fact that my project is focused entirely on the medical causes and effects of certain things on the body, the best method seems to be the cohort study or case control method. It directly looks into what is causing issues, in my case poor respiratory function, and tries to seek them out. 

1. Cohort Study

2.Cross sectional

3.RCT

4. Anecdotal 

How do I know that the remit of the method itself is selecting the research, rather than just you on a whim? + 1 thing you found interesting + how you imagine using the source

Article #1:

Barraza-Villarreal, A., Sunyer, J., Hernandez-Cadena, L., Escamilla-Nuñez, M. C., Sienra-Monge, J. J., Ramírez-Aguilar, M., … Romieu, I. (2008). Air Pollution, Airway Inflammation, and Lung Function in a Cohort Study of Mexico City Schoolchildren. Environmental Health Perspectives, 116(6), 832–838.

This article is very relevant to my topic. It looks directly at whether there is an effect on SHORT term pollution in schoolchildren who are also asthmatics. The short term factor is important because short and long term effects can be very different.  It compares the effect on both asthmatic children and non-asthmatic children, so it would be a very good source to use on the results section. It could also be used for the introduction of the paper, as it fits so well with my topic. I found their strong results very interesting.

Article 2: 

Caroline Barakat-Haddad , Susan J. Elliott & David Pengelly (2012) Does Chronic Exposure to Air Pollution in Childhood Impact Long-Term Respiratory Health?, The Professional Geographer, 64:3, 446-463, DOI: 10.1080/00330124.2011.609775

This article once again relates very directly to my topic and research question, but in a slightly different way.  It is a LONG term study, and it studies the correlating long term effects of air pollution on the respiratory system. Instead of looking at the effects in asthmatics, it looks to see if childhood exposure to pollutants cause issues later in life, such as asthma. I could see myself using this article in the results section, as it uses unique and new information.  I really found the fact that it was looking at pollution as a cause of asthma very interesting, as opposed to source 1, which looks at the worsening of asthma  due to pollution. 

Article 3: 

Beelen, R., Hoek, G., van den Brandt, P. A., Goldbohm, R. A., Fischer, P., Schouten, L. J., … Brunekreef, B. (2008). Long-Term Effects of Traffic-Related Air Pollution on Mortality in a Dutch Cohort (NLCS-AIR Study). Environmental Health Perspectives, 116(2), 196–202. http://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.10767

This article is slightly different than the other articles, but it still relates directly to my research question. This paper looks at the effects of pollution only caused by traffic, which is much more specific than the other articles are. It is also looking at the long term effects of this pollution, but not necessarily for the effects on the respiratory system. Instead they looked at the chance of mortality, which I found extremely interesting. Although it does not seek out the correlation for traffic pollution and respiratory health, it does have some good results for it. I could see myself using this article for the methods section, and in the introduction. 

 

Article 4: 

J. Just, C. Ségala, F. Sahraoui, G. Priol, A. Grimfeld, F. Neukirch

European Respiratory Journal Oct 2002, 20 (4) 899-906; DOI: 10.1183/09031936.02.00236902

This article is about the effects on children who already have asthma, and it looks at the short term effects on these children. Instead of looking at the children during high times of pollution, like in winter, they looked at the effects on the children during low times of pollution. This caused some somewhat interesting results. Even though the levels of pollution were low, and well below the government restrictions, the children still experienced a wide variety of respiratory issues. I could see myself using this article in the results section, as it had a very interesting set of results. 

Article 5: 

Jacquemin, B., Siroux, V., Sanchez, M., Carsin, A.-E., Schikowski, T., Adam, M., … Kauffmann, F. (2015). Ambient Air Pollution and Adult Asthma Incidence in Six European Cohorts (ESCAPE). Environmental Health Perspectives, 123(6), 613–621. http://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1408206

This article looked at the effects of pollution and the incidence of asthma in adults. It was interesting to see that the ambient pollution effected even adults heavily, as most of the other studies are about children and the effects on them. I would like to use this paper for the introduction.