Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
strengthen the findings of this project. More participants would also widen the
variety of homes, workplaces and even ages.
Acknowledgments
We are most grateful to the participants in this study who gave freely of their
time and carried out their often-complex tasks in a most capable manner, and to the Environment
Protection Authority of Victoria who provided ambient monitoring data. The project was funded
by the Australian Government Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts under
the Clean Air Research Programme and by CSIRO's Preventative Health Flagship.
References
Keywood MD, Beer T, Ayers GP et al. (1998) Th
e use of passive gas samplers to monitor
personal exposure to environmental pollutants. Clean Air 32(3):32-36.
Dunne E, Kirstine WV, Galbally IE et al. (2006)
A study of gaseous indoor air quality for a
Melbourne home. Clean Air and Environmental Quality 40(3): 45-51.
Monn C (2001) Expos
ure assessment of air pollutants: a review on spatial heterogeneity and
indoor/outdoor/personal exposure to suspended particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide and
ozone. Atmos Environ 35:1-32
Physick WL, Cope ME., Lee S et al. (2007
) An approach for estimating exposure to ambient
concentrations. J Expos Sci and Enviro Epidemiol 17:76-83.
4. Questions and Answers
Question:
How do the air quality model-based exposures compare with the in-
vivo measurements?
Answer:
The comparison is not as good as hoped for. This is what prompted us to
develop the hourly-gridded fields consisting of observations from the EPAV
monitoring network blended into the air-quality fields. As discussed in the
paper, exposures calculated from these blended fields agree well with the
measured values. We think that the purely modelled exposures are not as good
because of limitations in the emissions inventory, as the meteorology for all
four events was modelled well.
Question:
Have you distributed some passive samplers as controls, e.g. placing
them next to a continuous monitor or keeping one at home 24 × 7?
Answer:
The first kind of control has been carried out previously, placing
samplers near the inlet of monitors, and showed difference errors of less than
10% on average. Also, every participant carried two samplers for each environ-
ment and the difference between the two was less than 5%. Some participants
were at home (moving between indoors and outdoors) for the duration of an
experiment, and the mean concentration of their permanent outdoor sampler
was greater than their personal sampler, due to indoor concentrations being
smaller. It should also be mentioned that across all participants, the weighted
