Using a probabilistic model (pCNEM) to estimate personal exposure to air pollution

Abstract

SUMMARYThis article describes the use of a probabilistic model to estimate personal exposure to airborne pollutants. Such estimates are important when assessing, for example, the potential effects of air pollution on health and in developing related policy. An individual's personal exposure will be determined by local pollution sources which will change throughout the day as the individual's location changes. For this reason, models have been developed that utilize 'time activity' patterns to compute the overall exposure to pollutants. The model described here is referred to as 'pCNEM' and can be accessed through the WWW. The computational platform is flexible in that it allows users to construct models defining local sources of pollution and emissions in addition to ambient levels. This article demonstrates the construction of such a model, for predicting the exposure to PM 10 of random selected individuals from sub-populations of Greater London. A case study of working females in the spring and summer of 1997 is presented.

Use of an exposure model to explore the impact of residential proximity to a highway on exposures to air pollutants of an ambient origin

“…Despite all of the limitations mentioned herein, our results do not deviate wildly from the ranges found in previous modeling studies (Gurram et al 2014;Hannam et al 2013;Zidek et al 2005). Finally, a larger population sample would have likely strengthened statistical associations between occupational groups at the interaction effect level and improved estimates of potential exposure benefits when moving further away from the highway.…”

A GIS model for personal exposure to PM10 for Dublin commuters

“…The generation is a complex stochastic process that follows the randomly selected individual in his activities over the period of the simulation. The individual is thought of as visiting one microenvironment (ME) after another as he or she is involved in his or her activities through time (Zidek et al, 2005). Living or attending school near major roadways has been associated with numerous health outcomes in recent years, including asthma exacerbation (Gordian et al, 2005), other respiratory illnesses (Brauer et al, 2002), and excess risk of mortality from cardiopulmonary disease , stroke (Maheswaran and Elliott, 2003), or all causes (Finkelstein et al, 2004).…”

A framework for predicting personal exposures to environmental hazards

“…As with pCNEM, which is the practical implementation of the framework described in this paper (and is an enhancement of pNEM), APEX evolved directly from pNEM. Although APEX differs from pCNEM (Zidek et al 2005) in certain fundamental respects they do have important conceptual elements in common.…”

“…It begins with a general version and goes on to one specifically for air pollution. Finally, for completeness it briefly describes pCNEM (Zidek et al 2000) whose usage is discussed in a companion paper (Zidek et al 2005). More detail is available in Zidek et al (2003).…”