Models for Human Exposure to Air Pollution

Four models for human exposure to air pollution are compared. Simple microenvironment monitoring measures pollutant concentrations at fixed locations, regarded as proxies for similar locations or microenvironments. This model does not estimate the variability and distribution of individual exposures. Replicated microenvironment monitoring provides some estimates of the variability and distribution, although some adjustment might be necessary. Integrated personal monitoring allows direct estimation of the average exposure and the variability and distribution of individual exposures. A regression analysis can be applied to estimate the contribution from each microenvironment type. Continuous personal monitoring has the advantage of recording exposure in each microenvironment type separately, allowing direct estimation of the average exposure and the variability and distribution of exposures in each microenvironment type. Moreover, it can also be conducted in conjunction with a two stage sampling scheme, using information from a large database on activity patterns, thereby making more efficient use of the monitoring data.