Air Pollution

This report contains two studies, by Drs. Brent A Coull and Eun Sug Park and their colleagues, and a Commentary discussing each study individually, as well as an Integrative Discussion of the two. 
Part 1. Statistical Learning Methods for the Effects of Multiple Air Pollution Constituents. Brent A. Coull et al.
Part 2. Development of Enhanced Statistical Methods for Assessing Health Effects Associated with an Unknown Number of Major Sources of Multiple Air Pollutants. Eun Sug Park et al. 

This report describes a study to identify factors that influence exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and VOC mixtures. Dr. Stuart Batterman at the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor and colleagues used the extensive data that HEI posted on the Web from the Relationships of Indoor, Outdoor, and Personal Air (RIOPA) study (HEI Research Report 130 Parts I and II), and data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), to characterize exposure distributions for 15 VOCs, with an emphasis on high concentrations. Factors examined included geographic location, weather, characteristics of participants' homes, and specific activities, such as pumping gas.

This report describes the results of a study of long-term effects of PM components in the American Cancer Society's Cancer Prevention Study II cohort; a time-series study of short-term effects of PM components on cardiovascular and other diseases in people living in 150 U.S. cities; and two toxicologic studies in animals exposed by inhalation to concentrated ambient particles, and in animals and human cells exposed to particles collected on filters from five different airsheds across the United States. This report, along with Research Report 178 (Vedal et al.), is one of HEI's National Particle Component Toxicity (NPACT) studies, which describe the most systematic multidisciplinary studies to date to investigate the health effects of PM components in humans and animal models at locations across the United States where the effects of PM sources and components may differ. The report includes a Commentary and a Synthesis by the NPACT Review Panel.