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Modeling indoor particulate exposures in inner-city school classrooms.

ABSTRACT: Outdoor air pollution penetrates buildings and contributes to total indoor exposures. We investigated the relationship of indoor to outdoor particulate matter in inner-city school classrooms. The School Inner City Asthma Study investigates the effect of classroom-based environmental exposures on students with asthma in the northeast United States. Mixed effects linear models were used to determine the relationships between indoor PM2.5 (particulate matter) and black carbon (BC), and their corresponding outdoor concentrations, and to develop a model for predicting exposures to these pollutants. The indoor-outdoor sulfur ratio was used as an infiltration factor of outdoor fine particles. Weeklong concentrations of PM2.5 and BC in 199 samples from 136 classrooms (30 school buildings) were compared with those measured at a central monitoring site averaged over the same timeframe. Mixed effects regression models found significant random intercept and slope effects, which indicate that: (1) there are important PM2.5 sources in classrooms; (2) the penetration of outdoor PM2.5 particles varies by school and (3) the site-specific outside PM2.5 levels (inferred by the models) differ from those observed at the central monitor site. Similar results were found for BC except for lack of indoor sources. The fitted predictions from the sulfur-adjusted models were moderately predictive of observed indoor pollutant levels (out of sample correlations: PM2.5: r2=0.68, BC; r2=0.61). Our results suggest that PM2.5 has important classroom sources, which vary by school. Furthermore, using these mixed effects models, classroom exposures can be accurately predicted for dates when central site measures are available but indoor measures are not available.

SUBMITTER: Gaffin JM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5340641 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Modeling indoor particulate exposures in inner-city school classrooms.

Gaffin Jonathan M JM Petty Carter R CR Hauptman Marissa M Kang Choong-Min CM Wolfson Jack M JM Abu Awad Yara Y Di Qian Q Lai Peggy S PS Sheehan William J WJ Baxi Sachin S Coull Brent A BA Schwartz Joel D JD Gold Diane R DR Koutrakis Petros P Phipatanakul Wanda W

Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology 20160907 5

Outdoor air pollution penetrates buildings and contributes to total indoor exposures. We investigated the relationship of indoor to outdoor particulate matter in inner-city school classrooms. The School Inner City Asthma Study investigates the effect of classroom-based environmental exposures on students with asthma in the northeast United States. Mixed effects linear models were used to determine the relationships between indoor PM<sub>2.5</sub> (particulate matter) and black carbon (BC), and t ...[more]

PMID: 27599884

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Project description:SICAS 1 and SICAS 2 have extraordinary opportunity to evaluate the role of diet, environmental exposures and asthma in the context of school and home specific exposures and capitalize on all the data we are already collecting. Asthma affects 25 million Americans, particularly urban minority children. Children spend nearly all day in school, yet little is known about the role of a child’s exposure to widely disseminated industrial chemicals on asthma morbidity. Early animal models and population studies have begun to identify an association between phenolic chemical exposure and asthma development through proposed increased regulation of an individual’s allergic immune response. This study, nested within a school-based environmental intervention trial, (School Inner-City Asthma Intervention Study, SICAS2) , will enable urinary biomarker analyses during a school-based academic year-long environmental intervention trial to analyze the source and impact of exposures on urinary environmental exposure biomarker levels as well as the relationship between these biomarkers levels and asthma morbidity. We are poised to leverage the clinical and exposure data being collected in the clinical trial and generate cross-sectional urinary phenol biomarker data (at baseline) within the resources of CHEAR. If successful, our study will assess the impact of exposures on these biomarker levels and the impact that these exposures have on asthma morbidity, controlling comprehensively for other personal, home, and school environmental factors associated with asthma outcomes. We hypothesize that exposure to environmental exposures (e.g. phenols, phthalates, environmental tobacco smoke) in urban school children and higher urinary biomarkers will preliminarily be associated with higher asthma morbidity. Specific aims are: Aim 1. To determine the source of exposure to environmental exposures (e.g. phenols, phthalates, environmental tobacco smoke) in inner-city school children as assessed by questionnaire, product use assessment and comprehensive school and home environmental assessment of children with physician-diagnosed asthma. Aim 2. To determine whether urinary phenol/phathalate/cotinine biomarkers are associated with asthma control (e.g. asthma symptoms, such as asthma-related symptom days (primary outcome), and other phenotypes of asthma/allergic symptoms and inflammation such as allergic sensitization, health care utilization and pulmonary lung function

Project description:BackgroundSchool classrooms, where students spend the majority of their time during the day, are the second most important indoor microenvironment for children.ObjectiveWe investigated factors influencing classroom exposures to fine particulate matter (PM2.5), black carbon (BC), and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in urban schools in the northeast United States.MethodsOver the period of 10 y (2008-2013; 2015-2019) measurements were conducted in 309 classrooms of 74 inner-city schools during fall, winter, and spring of the academic period. The data were analyzed using adaptive mixed-effects least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression models. The LASSO variables included meteorological-, school-, and classroom-based covariates.ResultsLASSO identified 10, 10, and 11 significant factors (p<0.05) that were associated with indoor PM2.5, BC, and NO2 exposures, respectively. The overall variability explained by these models was R2=0.679, 0.687, and 0.621 for PM2.5, BC, and NO2, respectively. Of the model's explained variability, outdoor air pollution was the most important predictor, accounting for 53.9%, 63.4%, and 34.1% of the indoor PM2.5, BC, and NO2 concentrations. School-based predictors included furnace servicing, presence of a basement, annual income, building type, building year of construction, number of classrooms, number of students, and type of ventilation that, in combination, explained 18.6%, 26.1%, and 34.2% of PM2.5, BC, and NO2 levels, whereas classroom-based predictors included classroom floor level, classroom proximity to cafeteria, number of windows, frequency of cleaning, and windows facing the bus area and jointly explained 24.0%, 4.2%, and 29.3% of PM2.5, BC, and NO2 concentrations, respectively.DiscussionThe adaptive LASSO technique identified significant regional-, school-, and classroom-based factors influencing classroom air pollutant levels and provided robust estimates that could potentially inform targeted interventions aiming at improving children's health and well-being during their early years of development. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP10007.

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Modeling indoor particulate exposures in inner-city school classrooms.

Publications

Modeling indoor particulate exposures in inner-city school classrooms.

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