APEx: An Air Pollution Exposure model to integrate protection of vulnerable groups into the UK Clean Air Programme

空气质量差是一场公共卫生危机，每年约有40,000人死于室外空气污染，英国每年在疾病、死亡、卫生服务和商业成本方面的成本为200亿英镑（RCP, 2016）。糟糕的室内空气质量进一步增加了这种风险，尽管大多数英国人90%以上的时间都呆在室内，但这种风险经常被忽视。儿童、老年人和有潜在健康问题的人等弱势群体尤其容易受到空气质量差对健康的威胁及其影响。劣质建筑和其他不可避免的社会经济脆弱性的影响加剧了这种风险。尽管存在这种危机，人们也认识到对个人的风险，但目前评估清洁空气政策影响的方法完全基于室外空气质量，而没有考虑人的行为或易感性。这项研究将通过创建一个更准确地反映人们在与城市互动时呼吸的空气的暴露模型，将室内和室外环境、交通和行为模式结合起来，将人置于问题的中心。这项研究汇集了来自各个学科的专家，将创建一个工具，为英国政府的清洁空气战略的实施提供信息。这一被称为APEx的工具将用于推动新的解决方案，以保护弱势群体的健康，使现有解决方案得以改进，以增加影响并减少意外后果。它将通过合并现有的三个先进的城市空气污染、建筑和城市形态模型，以及一个人类行为（基于主体）模型来实现这一目标，该模型将能够估计人们在城市中移动时暴露在多少空气污染中。将利用近年来开展的几项研究活动收集的世界领先和独特的个人暴露测量的广泛数据库对APEx进行评估。将进行选择调查，以确保人类行为在模型中得到正确反映，包括市民对拟议的清洁空气政策的引入可能作出的反应。该工具将首先为伦敦开发，那里有最多的输入数据，然后扩展到伯明翰市。将制定一项协议，描述未来如何将更多的城市纳入其中，以协助全英国以人为本的保护性空气质量管理。在城市设计、实施和评估空气污染政策和控制措施时，他们需要工具和指南，考虑到人们如何体验空气污染，并做出影响其暴露的选择。一旦完成，APEx将用于量化当前清洁空气区政策对公民呼吸的空气污染水平的影响。这些结果将用于制定新的或增强的政策情景，包括人类的选择和行为，以减少大气排放和保护目标脆弱群体。在整个研究过程中，我们将通过研讨会和在线用户小组与公众代表和利益相关者进行接触。这种知识的共同生产将最大限度地提高产出的相关性，包括模型设计、政策制定和公共卫生咨询。RCP(2016)。“我们的每一次呼吸：空气污染对我们一生的影响”。https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/projects/outputs/every-breath-we-take-lifelong-impact-air-pollution

Poor air quality is a public health crisis, with approximately 40,000 deaths per year attributable to outdoor air pollution and costing the UK £20 billion per year in illness, deaths, health service and business costs (RCP, 2016). Poor indoor air quality further adds to this risk and is often overlooked despite the majority of the UK population spending more than 90% of its time indoors. The risk to health of poor air quality and its impacts being disproportionally suffered by vulnerable groups, such as children, the elderly and those with underlying health problems. This risk is heightened by the impact of poor-quality buildings and other unavoidable socio-economic vulnerabilities. Despite this crisis and acknowledgement of the risks for individuals, current methods for assessing the impact of clean air policies are entirely based on outdoor air quality, without considering human behaviours or susceptibility. This study will place people at the centre of the problem by creating an exposure model that more accurately reflects the air that people breathe as they interact with the city, incorporating the indoor and outdoor environment, transport and behaviour patterns. Bringing together experts from a range of disciplines, this study will create a tool that will inform the implementation of the UK Government's Clean Air Strategy. This tool, called APEx, will be used to instigate new solutions to protect the health of vulnerable groups, allow the refinement of existing solutions to increase impact and reduce unintended consequences. It will achieve this by merging three existing advanced urban models of air pollution, buildings and urban form and a human behaviour (agent-based) model that will, in combination, be capable of estimating how much air pollution people are exposed to as they move around a city. APEx will be evaluated using an extensive database of world leading and unique personal exposure measurements gathered from several research campaigns carried out in recent years. Choice surveys will be carried out to ensure that human behaviour is correctly reflected in the model, including how citizens might react to the introduction of proposed clean air policies.The tool will first be developed for London, where the most input data are available, then expanded to cover the city of Birmingham. A protocol will be developed describing how further cities could be incorporated in the future to assist in protective person-centred air quality management across the UK. As cities design, implement and evaluate air pollution policies and controls, they need tools and guides that take into account how people experience air pollution and make choices that affect their exposure.Once complete, APEx will be used to quantify the impact of current Clean Air Zone policies on the levels of air pollution citizens breathe. These results will be used to formulate new or augmented policy scenarios incorporating human choice and behaviour to reduce atmospheric emissions and protect targeted vulnerable groups. Throughout the study, we will engage with public representatives and stakeholders through workshops and online user groups. This co-production of knowledge will maximise the relevance of outputs, including model design, policy formulation and public health advice.RCP (2016). 'Every breath we take: the lifelong impact of air pollution'. https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/projects/outputs/every-breath-we-take-lifelong-impact-air-pollution