title: A new approach to spatial identification of potential health hazards associated with childhood asthma.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Childhood asthma is a chronic disease, known to be linked to prolonged exposure to air pollution. However, the identification of specific health hazards, associated with childhood asthma is not always straightforward, due to the presence of multiple sources of air pollution in urban areas. In this study, we test a novel approach to the spatial identification of environmental hazards that have the highest probability of association with the observed asthma morbidity patterns.
  
  
  METHODS
  The effect of a particular health hazard on population morbidity is expected to weaken with distance. To account for this effect, we rank potential health hazards based on the strength of association between the observed morbidity patterns and wind-direction weighted proximities to these locations. We validate this approach by applying it to a study of spatial patterns of childhood asthma in the Greater Haifa Metropolitan Area (GHMA) in Israel, characterised by multiple health hazards.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We identified a spot in the local industrial zone as the primary risk source for the observed asthma morbidity patterns. Multivariate regressions, controlling for socio-economic and geographic variables, revealed that the observed incidence rates of asthma tend to decline as a function of distance from the identified industrial location.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The proposed identification approach uses disease patterns as its main input, and can be used by researches as a preliminary risk assessment tool, in cases in which specific sources of locally elevated morbidity are unclear or cannot be identified by traditional methods.
authors.affiliation: Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management, Faculty of Management, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa 3498838, Israel.
authors.forename: Alina
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Svechkina
authors.affiliation: Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management, Faculty of Management, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa 3498838, Israel. Electronic address: portnov@nrem.haifa.ac.il.
authors.forename: Boris A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Portnov
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000397:Air Pollution / Q000009:adverse effects*; D001249:Asthma / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002648:Child; D002947:Cities; D004781:Environmental Exposure / Q000009:adverse effects*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007557:Israel / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D062206:Spatial Analysis
keywords: Air pollution; Childhood asthma; Distance decay function (DDF); Distance gradient method (DGM); Health hazards; Incidence; Major metropolitan area