Exposure to Indoor Ferromagnetic Particulate Matter Monitored by Strawberry Plants and the Occurrence of Acute Respiratory Events in Adults

Abstract

Exposure assessment of air pollution in epidemiologic research remains a challenge. Previous studies showed that magnetic monitoring of strawberry leaves, based on Saturation Isothermal Remnant Magnetization (SIRM), is a valid tool for estimating the concentration of ambient particulate matter (PM). This study uses this assessment method for the first time in epidemiologic research to quantify indoor exposure to PM. In a nested case control study, we evaluated the association between ‘waking up by cough’ and indoor air pollution measured by SIRM of dust deposition on leaves of strawberry plants located in the bedroom in the general adult population. A multiple logistic regression was used to estimate the association between ‘waking up by cough’ and exposure to ferromagnetic particles of PM controlling for age, gender and smoking status. A cut-off of 10 µA was decided to define exposure status (high versus low). Using logistic regression, a crude odds ratio (OR) of 1.80 (95% CI: 0.90–3.60) for ‘waking up by cough’ was found. This association remained approximately the same after controlling for age, gender and smoking status (adjusted OR: 1.76; 95% CI: 0.60–5.30). We found an association between exposure to ferromagnetic particles and ‘waking up by cough’ in adults; however, it was not statistically significant. This environmental exposure assessment method could be a valuable alternative for expensive personal exposure measurement devices.

Co-creating a local environmental epidemiology study: the case of citizen science for investigating air pollution and related health risks in Barcelona, Spain

“…Since particulate matters are iron-rich particles and tend to accumulate on the plant leaves, a proxy for estimating the concentration of ambient particulate matter is by measuring the concentration of ferromagnetic particles on the leaves [ 28 ]. Plus, this assessment method has been demonstrated to be promising for participatory environmental epidemiology research [ 29 ]. This pop-up intervention first aimed to raise awareness about the project across all Barcelona districts, which contributed to overcome the limitations of the distribution of the online survey.…”

Multi-elemental profile and enviromagnetic analysis of moss transplants exposed indoors and outdoors in Italy and Belgium

“…Particularly the combination of magnetic analyses with chemical analysis techniques on exposed matrices provides insight into PM composition and creates opportunities for source apportionment and PM source profiling (Kardel et al, 2018;Castanheiro et al, 2020). SIRM was already successful applied in moss bags exposed outdoors (e.g., Vuković et al, 2015a), but, to our knowledge, the only magnetic analysis on biological matrices exposed indoors was performed by Van Dyck et al (2019), who measured SIRM in strawberry plant leaves exposed in houses; however, no chemical analysis and outdoor comparison was carried out.…”

Toolkit for conducting citizen science activities in environmental epidemiology

“…Within the CitieS-Health project, the "Strawberry Campaign" was organized, aimed to distribute 1,000 strawberry plants to measure air pollution (Gignac et al, 2022a). Citizens living in different neighbourhoods of Barcelona hosted a strawberry plant on their balcony for 3 months and then sent a leaf of the plant to have it analysed in a lab, following an example of Van Dyck et al, (2019). This activity raised public and media attention about the project with a massive and entertaining activity, as well as strengthened the collaboration with local groups who helped develop the intervention.…”