Indoor and ambient concentrations of 21 volatile organic compounds (including 14 hazardous air pollutants) were measured in the homes of nearly 80 western Montana (Missoula) high school students as part of the 'Air Toxics Under the Big Sky' program during the 2004/2005 and 2005/2006 school years. Target analytes were measured using low flow air sampling pumps and sorbent tubes, with analysis of...

Of the 189 air toxics listed in the Clean Air Act, a substantial number are important in potentially causing adverse health effects in several organ systems. Although the major health effects are manifested as respiratory diseases, especially airways disease, these agents may cause cancer and premature mortality, probably from cardiopulmonary disease. Validated biologic markers may be useful in...

The National Urban Air Toxics Research Center (NUATRC) hosted its first scientific workshop in 1994 that focused on possible relationships between air toxics and asthma. From that meeting came recommendations for future research including a need for more complete individual personal exposure assessments so that determinations of personal exposures to pollutants could be made. In the spring of 2...

African Americans in the U.S. often live in poverty and segregated urban neighborhoods, many of which have dense industrial facilities resulting in high exposure to harmful air toxics. This study aims to explore the relationship between racial composition and cancer risks from air toxics exposure in Memphis/Shelby County, Tennessee, U.S.A. Air toxics data were obtained from 2005 National Air To...

BACKGROUND: This two-part study employs several statistical techniques to evaluate the geographic distribution of breast cancer in females and colorectal and lung cancers in males and females in Nassau, Queens, and Suffolk counties, New York, USA. In this second paper, we compare patterns in standardized morbidity ratios (SMR values), calculated from New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH)...

This study examines race- and income-based disparities in cancer risks from air toxics in Cancer Alley, LA, USA. Risk estimates were obtained from the 2005 National Air Toxics Assessment and socioeconomic and race data from the 2005 American Community Survey, both at the census tract level. Disparities were assessed using spatially weighted ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and quantile r...

This study examines links between racial residential segregation and estimated ambient air toxics exposures and their associated cancer risks using modeled concentration estimates from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's National Air Toxics Assessment. We combined pollutant concentration estimates with potencies to calculate cancer risks by census tract for 309 metropolitan areas in the ...

A retention-time-locked mass spectral database was created specifically for indoor air analysis by thermal desorption/gas chromatography/mass spectroscopy (TD/GC/MS). This Indoor Air Toxics Database contains locked retention times and mass spectra for 171 volatile and semivolatile organic compounds that are targets in various indoor air methods. In combination with Agilent's Deconvolution Repor...

BACKGROUND Numerous studies have linked criteria air pollutants with adverse birth outcomes, but there is less information on the importance of specific emission sources, such as traffic, and air toxics. OBJECTIVES We used three exposure data sources to examine odds of term low birth weight (LBW) in Los Angeles, California, women when exposed to high levels of traffic-related air pollutants d...