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Project

Complexity of Exposure and Dose metrics in Epidemiological Research (CEDER) (R-5641)

This postdoctoral project aims to map exposure of the population to traffic-related urban air pollution. Several methodologies, ranging from easy to complex, are applied to quantify the gains of each additional complication in exposure metric. More complex methods often place a greater burden on participants, but new technologies foster chances to improve on this. In three European cities, in ~300 participants in total, the fraction of nitric oxide in exhaled air will be repeatedly measured as a non-invasive biomarker. This biomarker has been linked to short term black carbon (BC; soot, mainly from traffic sources) exposure before. First, the exposure of all the participants is modeled using simple metrics. Further, air pollution models and time-activity patterns of the participants are used to calculate the time-weighted exposure. Finally, personal exposure and dose are monitored using state-of-the-art portable devices (air quality, GPS, diary-app, sensors for physical activity). Biomarker measurements in all participants will be related to the different levels of exposure detailing for validation purposes. The project's hypothesis is that complex techniques are able to identify health effects more clearly and realistically by limiting exposure misclassification. This research is innovative in how it deals with two interacting geographies: air pollution concentrations and whereabouts of people; and how these new insights can improve epidemiological studies in the future.
Date:1 Oct 2014 →  30 Sep 2017
Keywords:Air Pollution
Disciplines:General biology, Plant biology