title: Assessment on personal exposure to particulate compounds using an empirical exposure model in an elderly community in Tianjin, China.
abstract: Using central site measurement data to predict personal exposure to particulate matter (PM) is challenging, because people spend most of their time indoors and ambient contribution to personal exposure is subject to infiltration conditions affected by many factors. Efforts in assessing and predicting exposure on the basis of associated indoor/outdoor and central site monitoring were limited in China. This study collected daily personal exposure, residential indoor/outdoor and community central site PM filter samples in an elderly community during the non-heating and heating periods in 2009 in Tianjin, China. Based on the chemical analysis results of particulate species, mass concentrations of the particulate compounds were estimated and used to reconstruct the PM mass for mass balance analysis. The infiltration factors (Finf) of particulate compounds were estimated using both robust regression and mixed effect regression methods, and further estimated the exposure factor (Fpex) according to participants' time-activity patterns. Then an empirical exposure model was developed to predict personal exposure to PM and particulate compounds as the sum of ambient and non-ambient contributions. Results showed that PM mass observed during the heating period could be well represented through chemical mass reconstruction, because unidentified mass was minimal. Excluding the high observations (>300μg/m3), this empirical exposure model performed well for PM and elemental carbon (EC) that had few indoor sources. These results support the use of Fpexas an indicator for ambient contribution predictions, and the use of empirical non-ambient contribution to assess exposure to particulate compounds.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Environmental Criteria and Risk Assessment, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing, China; Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.
authors.forename: Jia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Environmental Criteria and Risk Assessment, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Nan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Environmental Criteria and Risk Assessment, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Bin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Eco-Environmental Science, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: You
authors.affiliation: Energy Research Institute, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Division of Environmental and Water Resources, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
authors.forename: Jiefeng
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Eco-Environmental Science, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Can
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Niu
authors.affiliation: College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin, China.
authors.forename: Yating
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Hubei Provincial Meteorological Service Center, Wuhan, Hubei, China.
authors.forename: Fei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: Department of Building, School of Design and Environment, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
authors.forename: Xiao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Environmental Criteria and Risk Assessment, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing, China. Electronic address: baizp@craes.org.cn.
authors.forename: Zhipeng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Bai
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D016902:Air Pollution, Indoor / Q000032:analysis*; D002681:China; D004781:Environmental Exposure; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D052638:Particulate Matter / Q000032:analysis*; D012044:Regression Analysis
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D052638:Particulate Matter
keywords: Empirical exposure model; Infiltration factor; Mass balance; PM(10); Particulate compound; Personal exposure factor