Air pollution and health: bridging the gap from sources to health outcomes: conference summary

Abstract

Air Pollution and Health: Bridging the Gap from Sources to Health Outcomes," an international specialty conference sponsored by the American Association for Aerosol Research, was held to address key uncertainties in our understanding of adverse health effects related to air pollution and to integrate and disseminate results from recent scientific studies that cut across a range of air pollution-related disciplines. The Conference Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (

U.S. National PM2.5Chemical Speciation Monitoring Networks—CSN and IMPROVE: Description of networks

“…Understanding the sources of this complex mixture of ambient PM is important because PM has been shown to have adverse effects on human health, degrade visibility, increase the acidity of lakes and streams, damage materials and crops, and impact global climate (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [EPA], 2009a). Linking sources to ambient PM concentrations and ultimately to health effects and visibility degradation is achieved, in part, by understanding the chemical composition of atmospheric PM and how it varies temporally and spatially (e.g., Hopke, 1991;Schauer et al, 1996;Hopke, 2003;Brook et al, 2004;Watson et al, 2008;Solomon et al, 2012). However, near the end of the 20th century detailed information on particle composition was lacking for many locations around the country.…”

“…To fill this gap, the EPA and the National Park Service (NPS) established or expanded national chemical speciation monitoring networks to collect atmospheric particulate matter at urban sites (EPA) with a focus on linking sources to health effects (Federal Register, 1997) and at rural to pristine sites (Class I areas; NPS) with a focus on linking sources to visibility degradation (Federal Register, 1999). Of interest here are the networks related to collecting particles with aerodynamic diameters (AD) less than 2.5 mm (fine or PM 2.5 ) as particles in this size range have been associated with adverse health effects and visibility degredation (EPA, 2009a;Harrison and Yin, 2000;McClellan et al, 2004;Kampa and Castanas, 2008;Solomon et al, 2012).…”

Size-Differentiated Chemical Composition of Re-Suspended Soil Dust from the Desert Southwest United States

“…On a local scale, large fugitive dust sources can contribute to high pollution events of both fine (PM 2.5 , particles with aerodynamic diameter (AD) < 2.5 µm) and coarse (PM c or PM 10-2.5 , particles in the size range between 2.5 and 10 µm AD) particles. Understanding sources of these particles is important as both size ranges have been associated with adverse health effects (Prahalad et al, 1999;Ramanathan et al, 2001;Harrison et al, 2004;Solomon et al, 2011).…”

Preface

“…These pollutants encounter different chemical and physical processes in the ambient, resulting in their concentrations varying spatially and temporally over time scales ranging from seconds to days or longer and spatial scales of meters to kilometers (He and Dhaniyala 2012;Brantley et al 2014; Van den Bossche et al 2015;Seinfeld and Pandis 2016;Ranasinghe et al 2016;Apte et al 2017;Morawska et al 2018;Li et al 2018;Solomon et al 2019). These air pollutants have been shown to impact human health and welfare (WHO 2006;Solomon et al 2012;IPCC 2013). In the U.S., long-term measurements of EPA's criteria pollutants (NO2, O3, CO, SO2, Pb, PM2.5, and PM10 [PM refers to particulate matter and here with respect to particles less than 2.5 mm or less than 10 mm aerodynamic diameter]) (https://www.…”