ABSTRACT
RATIONALE: Over 400,000 individuals are estimated to have been exposed to the fallout of the World Trade Center (WTC) disaster. The incidence of acquired allergy and lung injury among rescue and cleanup workers exposed to the WTC fallout has been established. Briefly, rescue and cleanup workers exposed to the WTC fallout had a high incidence of allergic hypersensitivity and permanent small airways dysfunction characterized by distal airways narrowing and airway hyperresponsiveness. The current study sought to quantify the utilization of allergy/immunology services among rescue and cleanup workers exposed to the WTC fallout. METHODS: Subjects (N=65) were referred from the WTC Health Program to a multispecialty allergy/immunology and pulmonology clinic for provision of allergy-immunology specialty services. Electronic health records of all subjects were retrospectively reviewed from the date of first referral to March 2020-when routine care was interrupted due to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic-to quantify utilization of allergy/immunology and pulmonology services;10 subjects were excluded from analysis due to incomplete health records. RESULTS: On average, time to referral for allergy-immunology services by the WTC Health Program was 15.2 years (SD=1.7). The majority of the subjects were male (89.1%), police officers (67.3%) who never smoked (65.5%) and had no history of allergic or respiratory disease prior to being exposed to the WTC fallout. Most were found to have environmental allergies (83.6%);the most common comorbidities were allergic rhinitis (89.1%), asthma (67.3%), and chronic sinusitis (63.6%). All subjects underwent environmental allergy testing. Most subjects-35 of 55 (63.6%)-were prescribed an epinephrine autoinjector for environmental allergies. Regarding allergic immunotherapy (IT), 33 of 55 (60.0%) received IT;additionally, 7 subjects (12.7%) were determined to be IT candidates but did not receive IT. The most common monoclonal antibody therapy used in this cohort was omalizumab (18.2%). Only 11 (20.0%) and 3 (5.5%) underwent serum IgE and IgG testing, respectively. CONCLUSION: Rescue and cleanup workers referred to a multispecialty allergy/immunology and pulmonology practice from the WTC Health Program not only had a high incidence of acquired allergies to environmental allergens, but the majority were prescribed and epinephrine autoinjector and either received or were candidates to receive allergy immunotherapy. Given that hundreds of thousands of individuals were exposed to the WTC fallout and exposure is an independent risk factor for developing allergic disease, this research may have identified ways we may be falling short in providing allergy/immunology services to exposed individuals.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Circadian rhythms have critical roles in human health. We quantified the effect of time-of-day of COVID-19 vaccination and other covariates on self-reported side effects post vaccination. Methods: The dataset was created from MassGeneralBrigham (MGB) electronic health records and REDCap survey that collected self-reported symptoms for 1-3 days after each immunization. Variables are demographics (age, sex, race, and ethnicity), vaccine manufacturer, clock time of vaccine administration/appointment, any COVID-19 diagnosis/positive test prior to vaccination, any history of allergy, and any note of epinephrine self-injection (e.g., EpiPen) medication. Time of day groupings were morning (6 am10 am), midday (10 am2 pm), late afternoon (2 pm6 pm) or evening (6 pm10 pm). Side effects were classified as Allergic (Rash;Hives;Swollen lips, tongue, eyes, or face;Wheezing) and Non-Allergic (New Headache, New Fatigue, Arthralgias, Myalgias, Fever) symptoms. The study was approved by the MGB IRB.Machine learning (ML) techniques (e.g., extreme gradient boosting) were applied to the variables to predict the occurrence of side effects. Stratified k-fold cross validation was used to validate the performance of the ML models. Shapley Additive Explanation values were computed to explain the contribution of each of the variables to the prediction of the occurrence of side effects. Results: Data were from 54,844 individuals. On day 1 after the first vaccination, (i) females, people who received the Moderna vaccine, and those with any allergy history were more likely to report Allergic side effects;and (ii) females, people who received the Janssen vaccine, those who had prior COVID-19 diagnosis ,and those who received their vaccine in the morning or midday and were more likely to report Non-Allergic symptoms. Older persons had fewer side effects of any type. Conclusion: ML techniques identified demographic and time-ofday- of-vaccination effects on side effects reported on the first day after the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccination. We will use these techniques to test for changes on days 2 and 3 after the first dose, and the first 3 days after the second dose and for the influence of recent night or shiftwork. Future work should target underlying physiological reasons.