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Multiple Sclerosis Disease Distribution and Potential Impact of Environmental Air Pollutants in Georgia

This study’s purpose is to examine the potential relationships between MS (Multiple Sclerosis) and environmental outdoor air pollutants in GA (Georgia). We used secondary, cross-sectional data received from the member’s list of the National Multiples Sclerosis Society’s GA chapter (NMSS-GA), the U.S. census, and scorecard.org, a database based on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Toxic Release Inventory (to 2002) and National Emissions Inventory (1999) data. The study population was 9,072,576 including 6,247 self-reported MS cases from NMSS-GA. Using stepwise multivariate linear regression of census and EPA data, the best predictive model in GA for female or total prevalence rates used per capita income and coarse particles (PM-10); male prevalence rates included only per capita income. The relationship between MS and PM-10 could be facilitated by influences of PM-10 on the systemic immune response and inflammation. More exposure and basic and clinical research are needed to understand environmental influences on MS.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:GEORGIA/oai:digitalarchive.gsu.edu:iph_theses-1007
Date23 July 2007
CreatorsGregory, Anthony Charles
PublisherDigital Archive @ GSU
Source SetsGeorgia State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourcePublic Health Theses

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