2001: Climate, Aerosols and Health: Environmental Effects on Asthma Burden

A matter of recent concern in environmental and climate research as well as an issue for regulation and policy is the affects of aerosols in the atmosphere. Aerosols are either liquid or solid particles, are either man-made or natural in origin, have an effect on the radiation balance, can alter the atmospheric chemistry and/or chemical reactions in the atmosphere as well as have an effect on the health of the people who inhale them. Atmospheric processes that depend on climate and its variability affect the transport of aerosols, their lifetime, size, composition and formation.

The UrbanMAAP study aims to evaluate and quantify the relationship between the increase in global and regional respiratory health problems and changes in atmospheric composition caused by human activities. The goal of the project is to reduce the recognized uncertainties in research concerning human health, the environment and climate. Many of these uncertainties result from limitations of the data, such as the lack of aerosol data with adequate spatial coverage, or expected under-reporting of health statistics because only mortality or hospitalization data are available. These limits on the available data have prevented the reliable characterization and quantification of the relationships between aerosols, their gas phase precursors and health.

To address the lack of data, students and teachers have been involved in Intensive Observations Periods, during which the students at a number of New York City schools make and record sunphotometer measurements to determine the aerosol loading. In addition, asthma survey information is collected from a random sample of students at these schools. These data sets have been compiled, are available on-line and form the basis for this investigation.

In order to use the data, it is necessary to first investigate the quality of the data sets. To do this, the sunphotometer group will make measurements and compare their new data against the measurements made by the Multi-Filter Rotating Shadowband Radiometer (MFRSR) and the CIMEL sun/sky radiometer located on the roof of GISS.

In order to address the reliability of the asthma survey data, our asthma researchers will be comparing same school survey results to determine the degree to which the survey captures the asthma statistics of the school's population. Another way that we will address the reliability of our survey data is to investigate how well it compares with other measures. For example, we asked a number of questions aimed at inferring socioeconomic information, these socioeconomic indicators will be compared with actual socioeconomic data from Census records to determine how well the survey captures socioeconomic variability within New York City.

Having addressed data quality issues, the team will then combine their asthma and aerosol data with EPA measurements of particulates and their gas phase precursors to examine the relationships between these measurements. The big question to answer is whether there is a relationship between asthma and pollution (aerosol and their precursors).

Guiding Science Questions:

What is the relationship between the increase in global and regional respiratory health problems and changes in atmospheric composition caused by human activities?

How do the hand-held sunphotometer measurements compare to the MFRSR and CIMEL instruments? Are hand-held measurements robust enough to study the spatial variability of aerosol?

How reliable is the asthma data collected from UrbanMAAP school surveys?

Basic Science Concepts and Questions

What is Conservation of Energy?

What are the processes scattering, absorption and extinction and how do they relate to energy?

What does the sunphotometer measure?

What are aerosols?

What are the sources of natural and anthropogenic aerosols and how do they relate to why we care to human health and the environment?

How does the size of aerosols vary and why does this matter?

What are secondary aerosols (sulfates and nitrates) and how are they produced from gas phase emissions?

What are gas phase reactions with water?

How is relative humidity dependent on particle size?

What is asthma?