Multi-site time series studies have reported evidence of an association between short term exposure to particulate matter (PM) and adverse health effects, but the effect size varies across the United States. Variability in the effect may partially be due to differing community level exposure and health characteristics, but also due to the chemical composition of PM which is known to vary greatl...

Many cohort studies in environmental epidemiology require accurate modeling and prediction of fine scale spatial variation in ambient air quality across the U.S. This modeling requires the use of small spatial scale geographic or "land use" regression covariates and some degree of spatial smoothing. Furthermore, the details of the prediction of air quality by land use regression and the spatial...

In this paper the influence of heterogeneous traffic on the temporal variation of ambient PM10, PM2.5 and PM1 concentrations at a busy arterial route (Sardar Patel Road) in the Chennai city has been analyzed. The hourly PM concentration, traffic counts and average speed of the vehicles have been monitored at the study site for one week (19-25 January 2009). Results indicated that the concentrat...

Anenberg SC, Horowitz LW, Tong DQ, West JJ. 2010. An estimate of the gobal burden of anthropogenic ozone and fine particulate matter on premature human mortality using atmospheric modeling. Environ Health Perspect 118:1189–1195; doi:10.1289/ehp.0901220 [Online 9 April 2010]. Cohen AJ, Anderson HR, Ostro B, Pandey KD, Krzyzanowski M, Künzli N, et al. 2004. Urban air pollution. In: Comparative Qu...

Studies of the effect of air pollution on cognitive health are often limited to populations living near cities that have air monitoring stations. Little is known about whether the estimates from such studies can be generalized to the U.S. population, or whether the relationship differs between urban and rural areas. To address these questions, we used a satellite-derived estimate of fine partic...

Disturbed land surfaces are a major source of fine particulate matter in the air. Dust suppressants are applied to these surfaces to minimize the suspension of the particulate matter. The application of dust suppressants affects the runoff characteristics of these lands as well as the water quality of the runoff. A rainfall simulator has been designed to create rainfall, and to study the hydrol...

Quantitative assessment of human exposures and health effects due to air pollution involve detailed characterization of impacts of air quality on exposure and dose. A key challenge is to integrate these three components on a consistent spatial and temporal basis taking into account linkages and feedbacks. The current state-of-practice for such assessments is to exercise emission, meteorology, a...

BACKGROUND Exposure to atmospheric particulate matter (PM) remains an important public health concern, although it remains difficult to quantify accurately across large geographic areas with sufficiently high spatial resolution. Recent epidemiologic analyses have demonstrated the importance of spatially- and temporally-resolved exposure estimates, which show larger PM-mediated health effects as...

The hygroscopic properties of the organic fraction of aerosols are poorly understood. The ability of organic aerosols to absorb water as a function of relative humidity (RH) was examined using data collected during the 1999 Big Bend Regional Aerosol and Visibility Observational Study (BRAVO). (On average, organics accounted for 22% of fine particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter less th...

The public is increasingly concerned about particulate matter pollution caused by respirable suspended particles (PM10) and fine particles (PM2.5). In this paper, PM10 and PM2.5 concentration are estimated with remote sensing and individual air quality indexes of PM10 and PM2.5 (IPM10 and IPM2.5) over mainland China in 2010 are calculated. We find that China suffered more serious PM2.5 than PM1...