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DEVELOPMENT OF EXPOSURE-RESPONSE MODELS FOR THE ACUTE RESPIRATORY EFFECTS OF INHALED IRRITANTS IN HUMANS
Citation:
McDonnell, W F. DEVELOPMENT OF EXPOSURE-RESPONSE MODELS FOR THE ACUTE RESPIRATORY EFFECTS OF INHALED IRRITANTS IN HUMANS. Fifth Annual NHEERL Symposium, Research Triangle Park, NC, June 5, 2000.
Description:
In order to conduct quantitative risk assessment with minimal uncertainty for short-term exposure to ozone and other respiratory irritants, one must identify exposure-response (E-R) models which accurately predict the distribution of the magnitudes of response (or the proportion of individuals experiencing a given response) across the range of ambient exposure scenarios and personal characteristics of interest. The purpose of this manuscript was to describe a method for identification of such models and to demonstrate the method and evaluate the resulting model?s performance using ozone as a representative respiratory irritant. This approach to model identification utilizes a general knowledge of mechanistic information and E-R characteristics for the specific pollutant and traditional statistical techniques for estimating model coefficients and prediction uncertainty. For ozone we identified a two-compartment model consistent with known mechanisms and E-R characteristics. Using data from 485 volunteers exposed for two hours to one of six ozone concentrations at one of three activity levels, we estimated model coefficients and evaluated the predictive ability of the model for lung function and symptom responses. We found that the model accurately predicted responses as a function of ozone concentration, minute ventilation during exposure, and duration of exposure and concluded that this approach to model identification was successful for ozone, and we hypothesized that a similar approach would be useful for other respiratory irritants.