Publications

Communication 14, HEI's Research Program on the Impact of Actions to Improve Air Quality: Interim Evaluation and Future Directions, provides an overview of progress to date in HEI's Accountability program by evaluating nine studies that HEI has funded to assess actions that improve air quality. HEI's Accountability Research Program was initiated to assess the extent to which the predicted health benefits of new regulations have occurred.

This report describes a study to develop detailed personal exposure models that take various microenvironments into account. To develop the models, Dr. Harrison and colleagues made repeated measurements of exposure to selected air toxics for each of 100 healthy adult nonsmoking participants residing in urban, suburban, and rural areas of the United Kingdom expected to have different traffic exposures.

This report describes a study to explore novel electrocardiogram (ECG) parameters to improve our understanding of how air pollution may affect cardiovascular health. Drs. Robert Lux and Arden Pope used ECGs obtained in a previous study by Dr. Pope that found a decrease in heart rate variability associated with increased levels of particulate matter, and analyzed them for changes in novel parameters of another important potential change - ventricular repolarization.

Research Report 137, The Influence of Improved Air Quality on Mortality Risks in Erfurt, Germany, is the first study to come out of HEI's program on the health impact of regulatory and other actions to improve air quality, known as accountability. The report describes sweeping changes in the economy and energy use that occurred in the former East Germany after the 1990 reunification as a result of stricter environmental controls and modernization of industry, transportation, and household heating. Dr.

Research Report 136, Uptake and Inflammatory Effects of Nanoparticles in a Human Vascular Endothelial Cell Line, is one part of HEI's larger program on the health effects of particulate matter and its various components. This report describes a one-year study to evaluate which physicochemical characteristics of metal nanoparticles may contribute to their toxicity.

The September issue of Environmental Health Perspectives published the first systematic presentation of the HEI-funded PAPA studies in Bangkok, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Wuhan, as well as a combined analysis and accompanying editorial. These articles have been reprinted and are currently available as HEI Communication 13. The detailed studies and accompanying HEI commentaries will be published by the Institute this spring.

A Special Report of the Institute's Air Toxics Review Panel. Special Report 16 summarizes the health effects of exposure to the 21 mobile-source air toxics (MSATs) defined by the 2001 EPA mobile-source rulemaking and critically analyzes the literature for a subset of seven MSATs (acetaldehyde, acrolein, benzene, 1,3-butadiene, formaldehyde, naphthalene, and polycyclic organic matter). The report also assesses and summarizes research gaps and unresolved questions, as understood in the context of the current regulatory agenda. The report focuses on MSATs for which mobile sources are a sizable source of human exposure and for which existing data suggest that health effects might be observed at concentrations approaching those found in ambient air. For each MSAT, the following questions are addressed: (1) To what extent are mobile sources a significant source of exposure to this MSAT? (2) Does this MSAT affect human health? (3) Does this MSAT affect human health at environmental conditions?

HEI Communication 12 describes a project by Dr Scott Zeger and colleagues at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health that was funded by HEI to make data and software from the National Morbidity, Mortality, and Air Pollution Study (NMMAPS) available to the wider research and policy communities. This Communication contains the Project Report, which describes the Internet-Based Health and Air Pollution Surveillance System (iHAPSS), along with Comments from some members of the HEI Health Research and Review Committees and other experts who had used the data.

To answer important questions about possible sources of metal exposure from both tailpipe and non-tailpipe emissions, Dr. James Schauer and his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin - Madison collected and characterized metals in fine and coarse particles from a variety of sources, including tailpipe emissions, dust from brake and tire wear, and roadway dust.

The RIOPA project comprised three studies, one funded by the Mickey Leland National Urban Air Toxics Research Center (NUATRC) and two funded by HEI, that investigated seasonal concentrations of 16 VOCs, 10 carbonyls, and PM_2.5 in homes in Los Angeles CA, Houston TX, and Elizabeth NJ. The project was jointly funded and reviewed by a Special Review Panel of the two organizations. It generated a rich database on concentrations of air toxics and PM_2.5 in the personal breathing zone of 100 adults in each city as well as inside and outside their homes.

Dr. Hahn and colleagues systematically examined lung inflammation in young adult and old rats after inhalation of fine particles (< 2.5 µm in aerodynamic diameter) and ultrafine particles (< 0.1 µm in aerodynamic diameter) of different composition: relatively inert carbon and vanadium pentoxide (V₂O₅), which contains the transition metal vanadium, known to cause toxic effects upon inhalation in humans in occupational settings. In addition, they examined the effect of a short-term increase (spike) in particle exposure concentration on inflammatory response.

Dr. Brunekreef and his colleagues assessed the correlation between personal, indoor, and outdoor PM_2.5 concentrations for elderly people with cardiovascular disease living in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and Helsinki, Finland. Measurements were taken between November 1998 and June 1999 using fixed monitoring sites near the subjects' residences and inside their homes using the same type of monitor. Personal exposures were monitored with a different type of sampler that the subjects kept with them at all times.