Abstract
Air pollution exposure is typically assessed at the front door where people live in large-scale epidemiological studies, overlooking individuals’ daily mobility out-of-home. However, there is limited evidence that incorporating mobility data into personal air pollution assessment improves exposure assessment compared to home-based assessments. This study aimed to compare the agreement between mobility-based and home-based assessments with personal exposure measurements. We measured repeatedly particulate matter (PM2.5) and black carbon (BC) using a sample of 41 older adults in the Netherlands. In total, 104 valid 24 h average personal measurements were collected. Home-based exposures were estimated by combining participants’ home locations and temporal-adjusted air pollution maps. Mobility-based estimates of air pollution were computed based on smartphone-based tracking data, temporal-adjusted air pollution maps, indoor-outdoor penetration, and travel mode adjustment. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) revealed that mobility-based estimates significantly improved agreement with personal measurements compared to home-based assessments. For PM2.5, agreement increased by 64% (ICC: 0.39–0.64), and for BC, it increased by 21% (ICC: 0.43–0.52). Our findings suggest that adjusting for indoor-outdoor pollutant ratios in mobility-based assessments can provide more valid estimates of air pollution than the commonly used home-based assessments, with no added value observed from travel mode adjustments.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 10685-10695 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Environmental Science & Technology |
| Volume | 58 |
| Issue number | 24 |
| Early online date | 5 Jun 2024 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2024 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2024 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.
Funding
This study was supported by EXPOSOME-NL, funded through the Gravitation program of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science and The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO grant number 024.004.017).This work was funded by the EU Seventh Framework Program EXPOsOMICS Project (grant number: 308610) and the European Union's Horizon2020 research and innovation program EXPANSE project (no. 874627).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| EXPOSOME-NL | |
| Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science and The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research | |
| Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek | 024.004.017 |
| EU Seventh Framework Program | 308610 |
| Horizon 2020 Framework Programme | 874627 |
Keywords
- GPS
- PM
- air pollution
- black carbon
- exposure assessment
- personal exposure