Tools for Characterizing Multi-Pollutant Patterns of Exposure for Use in Environmental Health Studies

空气污染由气体和颗粒物组成，最高浓度通常出现在交通拥堵程度高的地区。研究有强有力的证据表明，暴露于各种类型的空气污染会增加疾病或死亡的风险，特别是对心脏和肺的影响。在现实生活中，大多数人都暴露在空气污染成分的复杂混合物中。然而，由于缺乏可用的方法，包括统计技术，研究通常只能考虑一个或两个空气污染成分对健康的影响。 该项目旨在开发新的先进方法，以帮助调查空气污染暴露的混合物对健康的影响。它将通过使用来自伦敦的非常详细的空气污染数据，同时由许多污染物组成的空气污染概况来做到这一点。它还将制定关于车辆释放的金属粉尘的接触简介。空气污染概况将被归类为与健康结果相关的风险组。此外，将调查空气污染混合物与更多和更少贫困地区的关系。该项目将产生丰富的数据集，有助于解决与现实生活中暴露于空气污染以及这些暴露与健康之间的关系有关的重要问题。该项目小组包括伦敦帝国理工学院和伦敦国王学院新成立的MRC-HPA环境与健康中心的空气污染暴露、统计方法和健康研究专家。他们开发的方法将免费提供，结果将分发给卫生研究人员和地方政府，并在网站上提供。

Air pollution is made up of gases and particles, with highest concentrations often found in areas with high levels of traffic congestion. There is strong evidence from research studies that exposure to various types of air pollution can increase the risk of disease or death, with particular impacts on the heart and lung. In real-life, most people are exposed to complex mixtures of air pollution components. However, because of a lack of available methods including statistical techniques, research studies are usually only able to consider health effects of one or two air pollution components at a time. This project aims to develop new, advanced methods to help in investigating the health effects of mixtures of air pollution exposures. It will do this by developing air pollution profiles, composed of many pollutants at once, using very detailed air pollution data from London. It will also develop exposure profiles for metal dusts that are released from vehicles. The air pollution profiles will be clustered into risk groups that are associated with health outcomes. Additionally, the relationship of air pollution mixtures with more and less deprived areas will be investigated. This project will result in rich sets of data that will help address important questions related to real-life exposures to air pollution and the relation between these exposures and health. The project team includes specialists in air pollution exposure, statistical methods and health research at the newly formed MRC-HPA Centre for Environment and Health at Imperial College London and King s College London. The methods they develop will be made freely available and the results will be disseminated to health researchers and local government and also made available on a website.