Research training in chronic, non-communicable respiratory diseases in Peru

PROJECT SUMMARY
Chronic pulmonary diseases coupled with environmental exposures present a growing public health problem in
Peru, and globally. Indoor and outdoor air pollution, tobacco smoke and occupational fumes and exposures all
contribute to burden of chronic respiratory disease in Peru. Social factors such a low socioeconomic status and
gender further compound this exposure risk. For instance, in high altitude communities in the Andes,
approximately 10% of adults are living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), affecting primarily
women. Household air pollution, a major risk factor for COPD, is common in poor rural households where
biomass fuels are used for cooking and accounts for over half (55%) of COPD cases in women in Peruvian
highland communities. Noting these risks and increased exposure, there is an ever-growing need for research
to address the causes and develop interventions to combat the environmental exposures driving the chronic
pulmonary disease epidemic in Peru. This application for the NIH D43 Training Grant, a collaboration between
William Checkley, MD, PhD at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD and Stella Hartinger, PhD at
Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru, leverages 30 years of collaborations between our
institutions to build a training and research program for promising, young Peruvian research scientists and
health professionals. This cohort will have the opportunity to focus on environmental health and chronic
pulmonary disease research with the mentorship and support of international, renowned faculty and advisors
within environmental and pulmonary research, ranging from atmospheric scientists to implementation
researchers. The program will provide intensive training opportunities and build training capacity in the range of
scientific disciplines (clinical epidemiology, exposure assessment, efficacy trials, implementation science)
relevant to addressing environmental exposure and pulmonary disease research at the masters, PhD and
post-doctoral levels. The proposed training program will provide support to two doctoral students from Peru
at JHBSPH and five master’s degree students at UPCH over the five-year award period and we will
support five Peruvian postdoctoral fellows in their applications to the UJMT Global Fogarty Health Fellows
program (JHU PD: Checkley). The long-term goal of this program is to build a sustainable and collaborative
research-training infrastructure to support the generation of evidence for the effectiveness of complex
interventions to address these health issues, as well as the translation of this evidence to policy and public
health practice in Peru. This application is responsive to partnering institutions of PAR-18-901
including the Fogarty International Center and the National Institutes of Environmental Health
Sciences through its focus on chronic pulmonary diseases and environmental exposures.

Grant Number: 5D43TW011502-05
NIH Institute/Center: NIH
Principal Investigator: William Checkley