archives@tulane.edu / The overall goal of this dissertation is to study the effects of environmental exposures on respiratory health and determine if there are more complex relationships between simultaneous exposures that lead to more severe morbidity. Three specific objectives over three manuscripts are proposed to achieve this goal. The first manuscript focuses on assessing the impact of pesticide exposure (i.e., pesticide metabolites in urine) on asthma outcomes in children residing in low-income urban housing. The second manuscript focuses on assessing the dual impact of cockroach allergen exposure and pesticide spray use on asthma morbidity. Finally, the third manuscript utilizes publicly available data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to conduct an Environment Wide Association Study (EWAS) to assess the factors associated with a marker of eosinophilic inflammation. The proposed dissertation has the potential to increase the understanding of the effect of pesticides on asthma morbidity in a highly vulnerable group and to assess factors associated with eosinophilic inflammation in the general population. / 1 / Derek Werthmann