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Exposure Information in Environmental Health Research: Current Opportunities and Future Directions for Particulate Matter, Ozone, and Toxic Air Pollutants
Citation:
McKone, T. E., P. B. Ryan, AND H. A. OZKAYNAK. Exposure Information in Environmental Health Research: Current Opportunities and Future Directions for Particulate Matter, Ozone, and Toxic Air Pollutants. Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology . Nature Publishing Group, London, Uk, 19(1):30-44, (2009).
Impact/Purpose:
The objectives in this manuscript are to report the issues and approaches used in the September 2006 workshop to determine short-term and long-term goals to improve the use of monitoring data and exposure model results for PM, ozone, and toxic air pollution in health surveillance and health research studies.
Description:
In September 2006, scientists from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) along with scientists from the academic community and state health departments convened a symposium on air pollution exposure and health in order to identify, evaluate, and improve current approaches for linking air pollution exposures to disease. This manuscript presents the key issues, challenges and recommendations identified by the exposure working group, who used cases studies of particulate matter, ozone, and toxic air pollutant exposure to evaluate health-effects for air pollution. One of the over-arching lessons of this workshop is that obtaining better exposure information for these different health-effects studies requires both goal-setting for what is needed and mapping out the transition pathway from current capabilities to meeting these goals. Meeting our long-term goals requires definition of incremental steps that provide useful information for the interim and move us toward our long-term goals. Another over-arching theme among the three different pollutants and the different health study approaches is the need for integration among alternate exposure assessment approaches.