Sonali Bose, MD: Checking in on Air Quality Health Research

It’s been an exciting past decade or so in the field of respiratory health, and current research is making particular strides in the field of air quality-related health.

But for as much has been found to progress the clinical understanding of air pollution’s relationship with patient outcomes, there’s a lot more left to uncover, Sonali Bose, MD, told MD Magazine.

In a sit-down interview, Bose, an assistant professor at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, reflected on some of the biggest topics discussed at the 2018 American Thoracic Society (ATS) International Conference in San Diego, CA, this year. In speaking ahead to what’s left to be uncovered by pollution health researchers, Bose pointed to individual exposure estimates as well as the factors that make a patient more susceptible or resilient to the effects of air quality.

It’s a crucial topic — not only does air pollution span a person’s lifetime, but it’s among the most threatening current public health issues, Bose said.

“In contrast to some of the other public health concerns we have, people often feel that they are vulnerable to these effects without much control over how much exposure they get,” Bose said.