Citation:

Ozkaynak, A H. ESTIMATING HEALTH EFFECTS FROM EXPOSURES TO OUTDOOR AND INDOOR SOURCES OF AIR POLLUTION. Presented at 16th Annual Conference of the International Society of Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE), New York City, NY, August 1-4, 2004.

Impact/Purpose:

The goal of this research to develop models and computational tools to improve understanding of the functional relationships underlying human exposure to air toxics, and to reduce uncertainty in estimates of exposure to individuals and populations of concern. This goal will be met by addressing a number of key objectives in this task and include:

Model Research and Development: develop a multiroute/pathway/media human exposure and dose model for air toxics.

Model Application: apply model to an urban area (Houston, TX) to estimate human population exposure and dose.

Model Performance Evaluation: compare and evaluate exposure and dose estimates with independent model estimates or personal exposure measurements

Description:

Individuals are exposed to wide variety of pollutants in various indoor and outdoor microenvironments during the course of a typical day. Sources of pollution in various indoor and outdoor locations produce particulate matter (PM) and gaseous pollutants with different physical and chemical characteristics, which may, in turn, result in different health responses. Thus, to fully understand the relationships between exposures to environmental pollutants and various health outcomes, personal exposures to principal sources of toxic chemicals have to be characterized. Proper quantification of the magnitude and timing of personal exposures to these sources will then require identification of key microenvironments, media, routes and pathways of exposure that contribute most to an individual's exposure. Source apportionment techniques can provide a useful method for determining personal exposure to PM and air toxics from specific sources. Contributions to personal exposures from sources that have only outdoor, indoor or both indoor and outdoor components can be developed for generating either personal or population-level source-specific exposure estimates, for use in epidemiologic analyses. A number of epidemiological studies have already evaluated the relationship between health outcomes and sources of ambient particulate matter and co-pollutants. These studies suggest the importance of examining sources and constituents of indoor, outdoor, and personal PM and other criteria pollutants. However, limitations of existing measurement data on indoor, outdoor and personal measurements to pollutants of concern (e.g., PM and its constituents or air toxics) and longitudinal time-activity data on susceptible population groups, hamper the investigation of health impacts of specific air pollution sources and its components. Future community health studies need to collect better information on indoor and outdoor sources of personal exposures to PM, PM species and various toxic co-pollutants.

Although this work was reviewed by EPA and approved for publication, it may not necessarily reflect official Agency policy.

Record Details: