Assessing personal exposure using Agent Based Modelling informed by sensors technology

Abstract

Technology innovations create possibilities to capture exposure-related data at a great depth and breadth. Considering, though, the substantial hurdles involved in collecting individual data for whole populations, this study introduces a first approach of simulating human movement and interaction behaviour, using Agent Based Modelling (ABM).A city scale ABM was developed for urban Thessaloniki, Greece that feeds into population-based exposure assessment without imposing prior bias, basing its estimations onto emerging properties of the behaviour of the computerised autonomous decision makers (agents) that compose the city-system. Population statistics, road and buildings networks data were transformed into human, road and building agents, respectively. Survey outputs with time-use patterns were associated with human agent rules, aiming to model representative to real-world behaviours. Moreover, time-geography of exposure data, derived from a local sensors campaign, was used to inform and enhance the model. As a prevalence of an agent-specific decision-making, virtual individuals of different sociodemographic backgrounds express different spatiotemporal behaviours and their trajectories are coupled with spatially resolved pollution levels.Personal exposure was evaluated by assigning PM concentrations to human agents based on coordinates, type of location and intensity of encountered activities. Study results indicated that PM2.5 inhalation adjusted exposure between housemates can differ by 56.5% whereas exposure between two neighbours can vary by as much as 87%, due to the prevalence of different behaviours.This study provides details of a new methodology that permits the cost-effective construction of refined timeactivity diaries and daily exposure profiles, taking into account different microenvironments and sociodemographic characteristics. The proposed method leads to a refined exposure assessment model, addressing effectively vulnerable subgroups of population. It can be used for evaluating the probable impacts of different public health policies prior to implementation reducing, therefore, the time and expense required to identify efficient measures.

Ambient air pollution and the risk of ischaemic and haemorrhagic stroke

“…This approach is possibly more suited for larger patient sample studies and for studies into long-term exposure. 73 Currently, the risk of ischaemic stroke and intracerebral haemorrhage related to air pollution is most pronounced in low-income and middle-income countries. These regional differences in air pollution levels are important to put the results reported in different studies into perspective.…”

User-Centred Design of a Final Results Report for Participants in Multi-Sensor Personal Air Pollution Exposure Monitoring Campaigns

“…The resulting individual exposure was then to be communicated back to the participants at the end of the campaigns. The participants were purposely not shown the data during the campaign because the ICARUS project aimed to apply agent-based modelling [ 39 ], and seeing real-time data could affect a participant’s behaviour. The project included winter (heating) and summer (non-heating) sampling campaigns, where participants from seven European cities (Athens, Basel, Brno, Ljubljana, Madrid, Milan, Thessaloniki) carried three personal monitoring devices: a portable sensor for particulate matter (PPM), a smart activity tracker (Garmin Vivosmart 3) and a silicone wristband as a passive sampling for organic pollutants.…”

Beyond the Energy System: Modeling Frameworks Depicting Distributional Impacts for Interdisciplinary Policy Analysis

“…Agent-Based Models: As described in Vallamsundar et al, Chapizanis et al, and Yang et al, [92][93][94] ABM is used to estimate the dynamic exposure of population subgroups or individual agents to environmental hazards by combining, for example, air pollution maps with street and building information and an ABM layer. The ABM simulates the movement (behavior) of different agents according to their socio-economic characteristics and associated behavioral rules.…”