Antonella Zanobetti, an environmental epidemiologist at Harvard, had her pioneering research on environmental factors such as air pollution and heat and their connections to neurological and cardiovascular diseases abruptly halted when the Trump administration terminated her research funding in May. Her 2020 national study focused on the effects of air pollution on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. The projects that were stopped included
(1) using Medicare/Medicaid data to assess if prolonged exposure to air pollution increases hospital admissions for Alzheimer’s-related dementias
(2) a collaborative study on the combined impact of heat and pollution on Parkinson’s hospitalizations, and
(3) an innovative study on the role of particle radioactivity in fine pollution and its effect on heart disease.
Zanobetti emphasized the importance of understanding environmental risks for public health, particularly since Alzheimer’s is the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S., and Parkinson’s cases are expected to surpass 12 million worldwide by 2040.

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