Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 16
Assessing Dynamic Exposure to Air Pollution
Mei-Po Kwan, Desheng Liu, and Jaclyn Vogliano
16.1
Introduction
Accurate assessment of human exposures to air pollution (e.g., nitrogen dioxide
and fine particulate matter) is critical to a wide range of geographic and health
studies, such as modeling the association between air pollution exposure and health
outcomes (e.g. asthma, premature mortality, and cancer), evaluating health impacts
or disease burdens in different population groups, and determining environmental
injustice that may be occurring with respect to exposures (Brunekreef and Holgate
2002
). Methodologies of exposure assessment thus have significant implications
for enhancing our understanding of and shedding light on how certain social
issues can be addressed (e.g., how air pollution differentially affect different
social groups). Health studies in the past typically assess air pollution exposure
by assigning temporally averaged (e.g. annual mean) pollution concentration at
people's residential locations (Jerrett et al.
2005
). However, air pollution exposure
is much more complicated as the exposure process is determined by the interaction
of two complex geographic processes: air pollution concentrations and people's
activity-travel patterns, both vary in space and time in highly complex ways.
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