Contribution of Satellite-Derived Aerosol Optical Depth PM2.5 Bayesian Concentration Surfaces to Respiratory-Cardiovascular Chronic Disease Hospitalizations in Baltimore, Maryland

Abstract

The fine particulate matter baseline (PMB), which includes PM 2.5 monitor readings fused with Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model predictions, using the Hierarchical Bayesian Model (HBM), is less accurate in rural areas without monitors. To address this issue, an upgraded HBM was used to form four experimental aerosol optical depth (AOD)-PM 2.5 concentration surfaces. A case-crossover design and conditional logistic regression evaluated the contribution of the AOD-PM 2.5 surfaces and PMB to four respiratory-cardiovascular hospital events in all 99 12 km 2 CMAQ grids, and in grids with and without ambient air monitors. For all four health outcomes, only two AOD-PM 2.5 surfaces, one not kriged (PMC) and the other kriged (PMCK), had significantly higher Odds Ratios (ORs) on lag days 0, 1, and 01 than PMB in all grids, and in grids without monitors. In grids with monitors, emergency department (ED) asthma PMCK on lag days 0, 1 and 01 and inpatient (IP) heart failure (HF) PMCK ORs on lag days 01 were significantly higher than PMB ORs. Warm season ORs were significantly higher than cold season ORs. Independent confirmation of these results should include AOD-PM 2.5 concentration surfaces with greater temporal-spatial resolution, now easily available from geostationary satellites, such as GOES-16 and GOES-17.In urban areas, PMB gives more "weight" to PM 2.5 monitor readings than CMAQ PM 2.5 model predictions. In rural areas, CMAQ PM 2.5 model predictions exert more influence than PM 2.5 monitor readings on PMB, since there are fewer monitors or no monitors. Ambient air monitors are usually found in urban areas. In the last 15 years, PMB has turned out to be a more representative PM 2.5 concentration surface, compared to the interpolation of PM 2.5 monitor data, as a method to resolve spatial gaps between ambient air monitors [16,18,22]. CDC subsequently incorporated PMB into its Environmental Public Health Tracking (EPHT) network of state and New York City partners [16,18,22,26]. To date, PMB has been used by federal and state epidemiologists completing EPHT projects in different parts of the US [16,18,22,26].Within this decade, the availability and use of satellite AOD data have become more routine [6,16,[27][28][29][30][31]. Newer generation satellite instruments measure AOD with increased temporal accuracy and finer spatial resolution [27,[32][33][34][35][36][37]. AOD is a unitless measure of the scattering and absorption of visible light by aerosols (particles) in the atmosphere [38][39][40]. AOD data are, by definition, actual physical measurements, an improvement over CMAQ PM 2.5 model predictions. Once AOD unitless measurements have been calibrated with actual PM 2.5 readings from on-the-ground ambient air monitors, it is then possible to utilize the derived AOD-PM 2.5 concentration readings to estimate actual ambient PM 2.5 concentration in areas where there are no on-the-ground air monitors. The relationship between AOD measurements and on-the-ground measurements of PM 2.5 concentration readings has b...

Characterization of Atmospheric PM2.5 Inorganic Aerosols Using the Semi-Continuous PPWD-PILS-IC System and the ISORROPIA-II

“…In addition, the ISORROPIA-II thermodynamic equilibrium model was used to study the partitioning of the WSI species in PM 2.5 aerosols. The predicted results correlated well with the observed data of the PPWD-PILS-IC system for SO 4 2− (slope = 1.0 and R 2 = 0.99) and NH 3 (slope = 1.02 and R 2 Figure S1: The size distribution of the water-soluble inorganic ions (NH 4 + , Na + , Ca 2 + , Mg 2 + , NO 3 2− , SO 4 2− and Cl − ) sampled by NCTU micro-orifice cascade impactor (NMCI) at National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) site from July 2016 to January 2018., Figure S2: Comparison of the prediction and the observation for HCl, Figure S3: Correlation of NO 3…”

“…Particles smaller than 2.5 µm in diameter (PM 2.5 ) exposure has been confirmed to be associated with total mortality, cardiovascular and respiratory mortalities, lung cancer, influenza, etc. [1] due to its chronic adverse human health effects [2]. Some previous studies [3,4] have revealed that PM 2.5 constituents such as sulfate, nitrate, and ammonium were responsible for these effects.…”

Case-Crossover Spatial Lag Grid Differences Between Aerosol Optical Depth-PM2.5 and Respiratory-Cardiovascular Emergency Department Visits and Inpatient Hospitalizations in Baltimore, Maryland, USA: Identification of Homogeneous Spatial Areas

“…Frequent, accurate, and timely measurements of ambient PM2.5 concentration levels, obtained from on-the-ground air monitors, are essential for protecting human health and decreasing respiratory-cardiovascular morbidity and mortality [8,17,19,21,28,29,[35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]. There are challenges in using ambient PM2.5 air monitors, especially those maintained by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Air Quality System (AQS) [38] in epidemiologic studies [3,32]. The majority of these PM2.5 filter-based monitors measure PM2.5 concentration levels every three or six days in urban areas with higher population density [3,32,38].…”

“…There are challenges in using ambient PM2.5 air monitors, especially those maintained by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Air Quality System (AQS) [38] in epidemiologic studies [3,32]. The majority of these PM2.5 filter-based monitors measure PM2.5 concentration levels every three or six days in urban areas with higher population density [3,32,38]. Few studies have evaluated differences between urban-rural areas [16,[43][44][45][46][47][48].…”

“…Increasing the number of stationary PM2.5 air monitors in rural areas would provide accurate readings of fine PM concentration levels and decrease spatial heterogeneity. Epidemiologic studies could use PM2.5 readings made in rural areas to determine fine PM's short-and long-term contribution to the occurrence of respiratory-cardiovascular hospital events [3,23,49]. Unfortunately, this type of enhancement to the AQS air monitoring network would be expensive to implement and maintain [38,[50][51][52].…”