Lung Health Varies Widely State-to-State for People with Cystic Fibrosis

Research By: Emrah Gecili, PhD | Rhonda Szczesniak, PhD

Post Date: February 27, 2026 | Publish Date: Jan. 6, 2026

Cincinnati Children’s experts analyzing national registry data find health disparities that reflect geographical differences in both poverty and environmental quality

Overall, people with cystic fibrosis are living much longer than they did decades ago. But the benefits of improved treatments and disease management may not be uniform across the nation.

Instead, people living in areas that score low on a “deprivation index” also tend to have weaker lung health based on routine FEV1 tests of lung function. In addition, health quality variations among lower-income people with CF appear to reflect location-specific environmental differences.

These findings and more were published in January in the Journal of Applied Statistics. Emrah Gecili, PhD, and Rhonda Szczesniak, PhD, both with the Division of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at Cincinnati Children’s, were co-authors.

We found that the effect of community deprivation on lung function is crucial and that the duration of this exposure has an impact on lung function,” Szczesniak says. “Furthermore, given the different results per geographical region, environmental factors play an important role in the progression of the CF disease.”

The study based its findings on data from the U.S. Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Patient Registry. Co-authors say their analysis could serve as a first step towards establishing the “ideal” conditions in a place to live for a CF patient.

“Clinicians, CF programs, and health systems should begin considering community-level deprivation as part of patient risk assessment, alongside clinical biomarkers,” Gecili says. “Researchers should further integrate social and environmental data into CF outcome models, and health policy leaders should prioritize resources and support for patients living in disadvantaged areas. Together, these actions could help close existing gaps in lung health outcomes among people with cystic fibrosis.”

Cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease that gradually destroys lung function, is one of the most widely known of thousands of rare diseases affecting Americans. Experts at Cincinnati Children’s have been involved in studying and treating CF for decades.

Learn More

Learn more about CF care at Cincinnati Children’s
Learn more about the data coordination role Cincinnati Children’s provides for the national Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network
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Publication Information

Original title:	Integrating US Registry data to reveal social and environmental determinants impacting lung function decline in cystic fibrosis patients
Published in:	Journal of Applied Statistics
Publish date:	Jan. 6, 2026

Read the findings

Research By

Emrah Gecili, PhD

Division of Biostatistics and Epidemiology

I strive to build advanced prediction models incorporating clinical and demographic characteristics, omics and imaging as predictors of rapid disease progression.

emrah.gecili@cchmc.org