Air pollution in moderately polluted urban areas: How does the definition of "neighborhood" impact exposure assessment?

Fiche publication

Date publication

novembre 2015

Journal

Environmental pollution (Barking, Essex : 1987)

Auteurs

Membres identifiés du Cancéropôle Est :
Pr MAUNY Frédéric

Tous les auteurs :
Tenailleau QM, Mauny F, Joly D, François S, Bernard N

Lien Pubmed

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26275728

Résumé

Environmental health studies commonly quantify subjects' pollution exposure in their neighborhood. How this neighborhood is defined can vary, however, leading to different approaches to quantification whose impacts on exposure levels remain unclear. We explore the relationship between neighborhood definition and exposure assessment. NO2, benzene, PM10 and PM2.5 exposure estimates were computed in the vicinity of 10,825 buildings using twelve exposure assessment techniques reflecting different definitions of "neighborhood". At the city scale, its definition does not significantly influence exposure estimates. It does impact levels at the building scale, however: at least a quarter of the buildings' exposure estimates for a 400 m buffer differ from the estimated 50 m buffer value (±1.0 μg/m(3) for NO2, PM10 and PM2.5; and ±0.05 μg/m(3) for benzene). This variation is significantly related to the definition of neighborhood. It is vitally important for investigators to understand the impact of chosen assessment techniques on exposure estimates.