Consortium:

The overall objective of the proposed project is the quantification of total human exposure to air pollutants and drinking water chlorine disinfection by-products in several European urban areas. This cooperative research will include two important pathways of exposure: inhalation and dermal absorption. The environmental and policy-relevant proposal product is the development of scientific methods in conjunction with a robust multiphase modeling environmental management system. Such product will facilitate development of more appropriate public health strategies for mitigation of the adverse effects of air pollutants including drinking water disinfection by-products, aimed at improvement of living conditions in European urban environment.

The specific objectives of the proposed research are:

1. To develop, test and implement state-of-the-art tools for identifying and quantifying the total human exposure in urban areas to air pollutants and house water use.

2. To provide an integrated European exposure assessment database for urban air quality and human exposure characterization through indoor/outdoor inhalation and dermal absorption modeling of air pollutants. This will be combined together with measured meteorological data to allow interpretation of the outdoor contributions to indoor human exposure from air pollutants. The proposed research project will make use of all available information obtained from previous studies to determine human exposure characteristics in the European scale.

3. To carry out exposure assessment for urban population in Europe in relation to inhalation dosimetry and dermal absorption. Results from the current study will contribute to the development of cost-effective strategies to reduce exposure, thereby protecting human health.

4. To link human exposure to particulate matter and various gaseous pollutants indoors with physiologically based mechanistic inhalation models and dermal absorption studies. The currently under development mechanistic respiratory dosimetry model for particulate matter and gaseous pollutants will be used to perform an integrated exposure/dosimetry assessment and analysis. Since particulate matter indoors and outdoors have different physical properties it is important to understand how these differences affect internal/delivered dose in the human respiratory tract.

5. To use the current modeling studies performed in the present project in order to demonstrate the functionality (validation study) of measurement results obtained from previous studies.

6. To integrate the exposure modeling tools in a state-of-the-art management system to demonstrate the capabilities to study human exposure in urban environment. The management system will be demonstrated to management and administrative services, local authorities, public services and business communities.

7. To actively involve city authorities and public organizations in the use of the management air quality system with the human exposure modules, a number of demonstration studies in European urban areas. They will demonstrate to the public the capabilities of the exposure management system and inform them on the human exposure pathways in urban areas across Europe.

8. To improve the quality of life of the citizens in Europe through a better understanding of the importance of urban air quality and water use.

Polish partner is responsible for comprehensive case studies of the air quality management tool in two European urban areas with different composition of air pollution sources. One of them is Katowice, a town situated in one of the most urbanized and industrialized areas of Central Europe, which shows the highest air pollution concentration due to heavy industry located in this region. The second case study includes Oslo, a city in the northern part of Europe with no major industrial sources but with considerable vehicular traffic, wood burning and dust resuspension. Focus will be on human exposure through two major routes: dermal and inhalation. Specific examples will deal with particulate matter and chloroform. The work includes implementation of the exposure assessment modules in existing air quality management systems ( local monitoring ), collection of own data and systematic and structured exposure assessment.

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