Inter- and Intra-Individual Variability of Personal Health Risk of Combined Particle and Gaseous Pollutants across Selected Urban Microenvironments

Exposure surrogates, such as air quality measured at a fixed-site monitor (FSM) or residence, are typically used for health estimates. However, people spend various amounts of time in different microenvironments, including the home, office, outdoors and in transit, where they are exposed to different magnitudes of particle and gaseous air pollutants. Health risks caused by air pollution exposure differ among individuals due to differences in activity, microenvironmental concentration, as well as the toxicity of pollutants. We evaluated individual and combined added health risks (AR) of exposure to PM(2.5), NO(2,) and O(3) for 21 participants in their daily life based on real-world personal exposure measurements. Exposure errors from using surrogates were quantified. Inter- and intra-individual variability in health risks and key contributors in variations were investigated using linear mixed-effects models and correlation analysis, respectively. Substantial errors were found between personal exposure concentrations and ambient concentrations when using air quality measurements at either FSM or the residence location. The mean exposure errors based on the measurements taken at either the FSM or residence as exposure surrogates was higher for NO(2) than PM(2.5), because of the larger spatial variability in NO(2) concentrations in urban areas. The daily time-integrated AR for the combined PM(2.5), NO(2), and O(3) (TIAR(combine)) ranged by a factor of 2.5 among participants and by a factor up to 2.5 for a given person across measured days. Inter- and intra-individual variability in TIAR(combine) is almost equally important. Several factors were identified to be significantly correlated with daily TIAR(combine), with the top five factors, including PM(2.5), NO(2) and O(3) concentrations at ‘home indoor’, O(3) concentrations at ‘office indoor’ and ambient PM(2.5) concentrations. The results on the contributors of variability in the daily TIAR(combine) could help in targeting interventions to reduce daily health damage related to air pollutants.