Assessing Personal Exposure to Ultrafine PM Number and Respiratory Health

描述（由申请人提供）：准确测量个人接触空气污染物的程度仍然是确定其对人类健康影响的最大障碍。尤其需要对儿童和青少年进行更精确的暴露评估，因为儿童和青少年的暴露程度可能因其时间活动模式而有很大差异，包括在户外、家中、学校和车辆中度过的时间。为了满足流行病学家对个人暴露特征的需求，我们在实验室环境中开发并验证了一种新型个人传感器，该传感器能够以高时空分辨率测量超细颗粒（UFP）暴露。最初的现场测试结果表明，该传感器可移动，坚固耐用，能够提供个人UFP暴露的准确时空测量。参与最初现场测试的儿童反馈表明，使用它的障碍包括它的体积、重量和噪音。因此，我们现在提出了一个两阶段的项目：1)评估传感器在减小其尺寸、重量和噪音后的可用性，同时保持其先前的测量能力（R21阶段）；2)部署改进的传感器来表征参加辛辛那提儿童过敏和空气污染研究（CCAAPS）的青少年的个人UFP暴露，并评估短期和峰值UFP暴露对呼吸健康的影响（R33阶段）。拟议的研究代表了工具开发人员和环境流行病学家之间的持续合作，并将允许迭代改进UFP暴露的个人传感器。此外，该传感器在R33阶段的大规模流行病学研究中的应用将解决一个重要的研究问题，即短期和峰值UFP暴露与呼吸健康之间的关系。该项目的成功完成将产生一种新的工具，用于测量现实世界中个人UFP暴露，并通过改进暴露评估来证明传感器在解决新假设方面的价值。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Accurately measuring personal exposure to air pollutants remains the greatest obstacle to determining their impact on human health. The need for more precise exposure assessment is particularly evident for children and adolescents whose exposure can vary widely based on their time-activity patterns including time spent outdoors, at home, school, and in vehicles. In order to meet the need of epidemiologists to characterize personal exposure, we have developed and validated in laboratory settings a novel personal sensor capable of measuring, with high spatiotemporal resolution, exposure to ultrafine particles (UFP). Results of an initial field test found the sensor to be mobile, rugged, and able t provide accurate spatiotemporal measurements of personal UFP exposure. Feedback from children participating in the initial field test indicated that barriers to its use included its voume, weight, and noise. Therefore, we now propose a two-phase project to: 1) evaluate the usability of the sensor after reducing its size, weight, and noise while maintaining its previous measurement capabilities (R21 Phase) and 2) deploy the modified sensor to characterize personal UFP exposure for adolescents enrolled in the Cincinnati Childhood Allergy and Air Pollution Study (CCAAPS) and assess the impact of short-term and peak UFP exposure on respiratory health (R33 Phase). The proposed study represents a continued collaboration between tool-developers and environmental epidemiologists and will allow for the iterative refinement of a personal sensor for UFP exposure. In addition, the application of the sensor in a large-scale epidemiologic study during the R33 phase will address a significant research question regarding the association between short-term and peak UFP exposure and respiratory health. Successful completion of the proposed project will result in a new tool for measuring personal UFP exposure in real world settings and demonstrate the value of the sensor to address novel hypotheses through improved exposure assessment.