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The Influence of Human and Environmental Exposure Factors on Personal NO2 Exposures
Citation:
WILLIAMS, R. W., P. A. JONES, C. W. CROGHAN, J. Thornburg, AND C. E. RODES. The Influence of Human and Environmental Exposure Factors on Personal NO2 Exposures. Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology . Nature Publishing Group, London, Uk, 22(2):109-115, (2012).
Impact/Purpose:
The National Exposure Research Laboratory′s (NERL) Human Exposure and Atmospheric Sciences Division (HEASD) conducts research in support of EPA′s mission to protect human health and the environment. HEASD′s research program supports Goal 1 (Clean Air) and Goal 4 (Healthy People) of EPA′s strategic plan. More specifically, our division conducts research to characterize the movement of pollutants from the source to contact with humans. Our multidisciplinary research program produces Methods, Measurements, and Models to identify relationships between and characterize processes that link source emissions, environmental concentrations, human exposures, and target-tissue dose. The impact of these tools is improved regulatory programs and policies for EPA.
Description:
The US Environmental Protection Agency’s (US EPA) Detroit Exposure and Aerosol Research Study (DEARS) deployed a total of over 2000 nitrogen dioxide, NO2, passive monitors during 3 years of field data collections. These 24-h based personal, residential outdoor and community-based measurements allowed for the investigation of NO2 spatial, temporal, human and environmental factors. The relationships between personal exposures to NO2 and the factors that influence the relationship with community-based measurements were of interest. Survey data from 136 participants were integrated with exposure findings to allow for mixed model effect analyses. Ultimately, 50 individual factors were selected for examination. NO2 analyses revealed that season, exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and residential gas appliances were strong influencing factors. Only modest associations between community-based measures of nitrogen dioxide and personal exposures impacted by various exposure factors for heating (r = 0.44) or non-heating seasons (r = 0.34) were observed, indicating that use of ambient-based monitoring as a surrogate of personal exposure might result in sizeable exposure misclassification.
URLs/Downloads:
Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology
The Influence of Human and Environmental Exposure Factors on Personal NO2 Exposures (PDF, NA pp, 138 KB, about PDF)