loading
loading
NIH grant 1R21ES038681-01: Identifying Exposure Biomarkers of Wildland-Urban Interface Fires (WUI) Among Firefighters
Institute: {'code': 'ES', 'abbreviation': 'NIEHS', 'name': 'National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences', 'admin_org_id': '12500022', 'admin_funding_url': ''}. PI: Yan Lin. Award: $470000.
Start: 2026-09-25T00:00:00.
ABSTRACT
Increased frequency and intensity of wildland and wildland-urban-interface (WUI) fires pose significant health
threats to affected people including firefighters. In the US, nearly all major WUI fires resulted from the rapid
spread of wildland fires into WUI areas driven by strong winds. Compared with wildland fires, WUI fires are more
heterogeneous and involves the combustion of vegetation biomass, structures, and other human-made materials
rich in halogenated compounds, plastics, and metals. Yet there is a lack of exposure assessment method
capable of distinguishing exposure to WUI fires from wildland fires and other combustion sources (e.g., traffic
exhaust) at WUI, which limit our ability to identify the adverse health effects of WUI fires. Built upon our previous
work on urinary metabolites of methylated and nitrated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) as source-
specific exposure biomarkers of wood smoke and diesel exhaust, this R21 project aims to identify novel exposure
biomarkers sensitive and specific to WUI fires. We hypothesize that exposure to WUI fires increases urinary
metabolites of chlorinated-PAHs in addition to increasing metabolites of methylated-PAHs and nitrated-PAHs
following exposure to wildland fires. We will leverage an existing cohort of firefighters (the Fire Fighter Cancer
Cohort Study) who respond to wildland and WUI fires. Each firefighter wore a wristband during the work shift
and provided urine samples at baseline and at the end of the shift. We will leverage these samples and data and
conduct additional analyses to address the following two specific aims. Aim 1: to determine to what extent
WUI firefighting increases urinary PAH metabolites. We will measure metabolites of chlorinated-, methylated-,
and nitrated-PAHs in urine samples collected from 100 firefighters before and after working a shift responding to
a WUI fire. We will also measure methylated-, nitrated-, and chlorinated-PAHs in wristband samples. We will
examine the difference in urinary PAH metabolites before and after WUI firefighting, as well as the correlations
between urinary metabolites and their precursors in wristbands. Aim 2: to assess the sensitivity and
specificity of urinary PAH metabolites in differentiating WUI fires and wildland fires. We will measure
PAHs metabolites in 100 urine samples collected after responding to a wildland fire and 100 urine samples
collected after responding to a WUI fire. We will assess the sensitivity, specificity, and areas under the curve of
individual biomarkers to distinguish wildland and WUI fires and explore the combined use of all exposure
biomarkers to classify personal exposure to combustion sources using dimensionality reduction methods.
Completing the project will identify novel biomarkers and methods to apportion personal exposure to WUI fires
and other combustion sources, which can be applied in larger studies to understand the health effects of WUI
fires among firefighters and the general population.document fetched 2026-10-04 02:43