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Linking Air Quality to Human Health
AMAD Research Programs
Linking Air Quality to Human Health
This research theme applies existing models and tools, and develops new tools and approaches, to link air quality to human exposure and human health. Typically, epidemiological studies rely on ambient observations from sparse monitoring networks to provide metrics of exposure. Yet, for many pollutants in urban-areas, large spatial variations exist – particularly near roads and major industrial sources. Further complicating the issue, ambient concentrations do not necessarily represent actual exposures, which can be influenced by the infiltration of ambient concentrations into indoor facilities (such as automobiles, homes, schools, and work places) and the activity of individuals (such as outdoor exercise, walking, commuting, etc.). Finally, populations are also impacted by the transport of pollutants. These multiple factors affecting exposure require approaches that scale from regional to local environments, and to the individuals experiencing the exposure. Thus, this research provides analytical and physical modeling approaches that provide the spatial and temporal detail of concentration surfaces needed to understand the relationships among pollutants emitted, the resulting air quality, and exposure of humans to these pollutants.
Research conducted under this theme focuses on developing analytical tools and methods based on models and observations to improve the characterization of human exposure, evaluate the effectiveness of control strategies with respect to health outcomes, and address critical exposure issues, such as exposure to multiple pollutants, for multiple scales.
Links: Linking Local-Scale and Regional-Scale Models for Exposure Assessment Characterizing Spatial Variation of Air Quality Near Roadways Assessing the Effectiveness of Regional-Scale Air Quality Regulations National Urban Database and Access Portal Tool (NUDAPT)