Concepts of human exposure to air pollution

Ott, Wayne R.

doi:10.1016/0160-4120(82)90104-0

Cited by 174 publications

(93 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…To determine personal exposure, pollutant concentrations in the pollution-space at each point in time a person is present throughout the day need to be considered (Ott, 1982). Occupational/industrial studies and the portable and wearable monitors developed (e.g.…”

Section: Background and Scope Of The Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying human exposure to air pollution—Moving from static monitoring to spatio-temporally resolved personal exposure assessment

Steinle

Reis

Sabel³

2013

Science of The Total Environment

360

231

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Eric. 2013. Quantifying human exposure to air pollution: moving from static monitoring to spatiotemporally resolved personal exposure assessment.Contact CEH NORA team at noraceh@ceh.ac.ukThe NERC and CEH trademarks and logos ('the Trademarks') are registered trademarks of NERC in the UK and other countries, and may not be used without the prior written consent of the Trademark owner. AbstractQuantifying human exposure to air pollutants is a challenging task. Ambient concentrations of air pollutants at potentially harmful levels are ubiquitous in urban areas and subject to high spatial and temporal variability. At the same time, every individual has unique activitypatterns. Exposure results from multifaceted relationships and interactions between environmental and human systems, adding complexity to the assessment process. Traditionally, approaches to quantify human exposure have relied on pollutant concentrations from fixed air quality network sites and static population distributions. New developments in sensor technology now enable us to monitor personal exposure to air pollutants directly while people are moving through their activity spaces and varying concentration fields. The literature review on which this paper is based on reflects recent developments in the assessment of human exposure to air pollution. This includes the discussion of methodologies and concepts, and the elaboration of approaches and study designs applied in the field. We identify shortcomings of current approaches and discuss future research needs. We close by proposing a novel conceptual model for the integrated assessment of human exposure to air pollutants taking into account latest technological capabilities and contextual information.

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Section: Background and Scope Of The Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying human exposure to air pollution—Moving from static monitoring to spatio-temporally resolved personal exposure assessment

Steinle

Reis

Sabel³

2013

Science of The Total Environment

360

231

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Ambient air quality data from fixed stations can be used to estimate the exposure of a population to concentrations of air pollutants in violation of the NAAQS. As indicated in a literature review on this topic, 4 there are several approaches to exposure estimation: extrapolation from fixed-site monitors, direct measurement of exposure profiles using personal monitors, and microenvironmental monitoring combined with human activity pattern models.…”

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confidence: 99%

Carbon Monoxide Exposures of Washington Commuters

Flachsbart

Howes

Mack

et al. 1987

JAPCA

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The potential for directly monitoring public exposure to air pollutants has been realized with the development of personal exposure monitors. The microenvironmental approach to exposure assessment involves monitoring the concentrations within microenvironments thought to contribute significantly to a population's total exposure. This paper focuses on the commuting microenvironment, because of the suspected large contribution that commuting makes to the total population exposure to carbon monoxide (CO). In particular, this paper presents typical CO concentrations, to which automobile, bus, and rail commuters of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area were exposed, on 15 hypothetical routes during winter 1983. In addition, the paper assesses the relative importance of several factors that explain variability in CO levels inside automobiles during rush-hour periods.The study found that automobile commuters were exposed to average CO concentrations that typically ranged from 9 to 14 ppm over trips that typically took between 40 and 60 minutes. Average CO levels for bus commuters typically ranged from 4 to 8 ppm for trips lasting between 90 and 110 minutes, and those for rail commuters typically ranged from 2 to 5 ppm for trips of 30-45 minutes. The most important factors influencing CO concentrations inside automobiles were identified as link-to-iink variability, day-to-day variability, and the interaction between link and commuting period. Variability in CO levels by route, driver, and factors specific to a particular commute were moderately important. Between and within monitor variation were the least important sources of variation in CO levels. Increasing automobile speed from 10 to 60 mph reduced average CO exposure by 35 percent regardless of commuting period. The study suggests that automobile commuters, who begin their homeward trips from highly polluted downtown parking garages, may carry residual garage concentrations with them as they travel along downtown streets.

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“…This list of steps represents a ''composite'' based on frameworks described in the literature over the last 20 years (Ott, 1982(Ott, , 1985Lioy, 1990;USEPA, 1992;Georgopoulos and Lioy, 1994;McCurdy, 1994;USEPA, 1997) as well as on the structure of various existing inhalation exposure models (NEM/pNEM, HAPEM, SHEDS, REHEX, EDMAS, MENTOR, APEX, AIRPEX, AIRQUIS, etc. (Whitfield et al, 1997;Freijer et al, 1998;Clench-Aas et al, 1999;USEPA, 1999a;Georgopoulos and Lioy, 2000;Rifai et al, 2000;Burke et al, 2001;Rosenbaum, 2002)) that have been used in past or in on-going studies:…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A source-to-dose assessment of population exposures to fine PM and ozone in Philadelphia, PA, during a summer 1999 episode

Georgopoulos

Wang

Vyas

et al. 2005

J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol

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A novel source-to-dose modeling study of population exposures to fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) and ozone (O 3 ) was conducted for urban Philadelphia. The study focused on a 2-week episode, 11-24 July 1999, and employed the new integrated and mechanistically consistent source-to-dose modeling framework of MENTOR/SHEDS (Modeling Environment for Total Risk studies/Stochastic Human Exposure and Dose Simulation). The MENTOR/ SHEDS application presented here consists of four components involved in estimating population exposure/dose: (1) calculation of ambient outdoor concentrations using emission-based photochemical modeling, (2) spatiotemporal interpolation for developing census-tract level outdoor concentration fields, (3) calculation of microenvironmental concentrations that match activity patterns of the individuals in the population of each census tract in the study area, and (4) population-based dosimetry modeling. It was found that the 50th percentiles of calculated microenvironmental concentrations of PM 2.5 and O 3 were significantly correlated with census-tract level outdoor concentrations, respectively. However, while the 95th percentiles of O 3 microenvironmental concentrations were strongly correlated with outdoor concentrations, this was not the case for PM 2.5 . By further examining the modeled estimates of the 24-h aggregated PM 2.5 and O 3 doses, it was found that indoor PM 2.5 sources dominated the contributions to the total PM 2.5 doses for the upper 5 percentiles, Environmental Tobacco Smoking (ETS) being the most significant source while O 3 doses due to time spent outdoors dominated the contributions to the total O 3 doses for the upper 5 percentiles. The MENTOR/SHEDS system presented in this study is capable of estimating intake dose based on activity level and inhalation rate, thus completing the source-to-dose modeling sequence. The MENTOR/SHEDS system also utilizes a consistent basis of source characterization, exposure factors, and human activity patterns in conducting population exposure assessment of multiple co-occurring air pollutants, and this constitutes a primary distinction from previous studies of population exposure assessment, where different exposure factors and activity patterns would be used for different pollutants. Future work will focus on incorporating the effects of commuting patterns on population exposure/dose assessments as well as on extending the MENTOR/SHEDS applications to seasonal/annual studies and to other areas in the U.S.

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Concepts of human exposure to air pollution

Cited by 174 publications

References 7 publications

Quantifying human exposure to air pollution—Moving from static monitoring to spatio-temporally resolved personal exposure assessment

Quantifying human exposure to air pollution—Moving from static monitoring to spatio-temporally resolved personal exposure assessment

Carbon Monoxide Exposures of Washington Commuters

A source-to-dose assessment of population exposures to fine PM and ozone in Philadelphia, PA, during a summer 1999 episode

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