AAAR 37th Annual Conference October 14 - October 18, 2019 Oregon Convention Center Portland, Oregon, USA
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Children’s Particulate Matter Exposures Characterization as Part of the New Hampshire Birth Cohort Study
Michelle McCombs, JONATHAN THORNBURG, Seung-Hyun Cho, Nalyn Siripanichgon, Erin Butler, Margaret Karagas, RTI International
Abstract Number: 460 Working Group: Aerosol Exposure
Abstract The New Hampshire Birth Cohort Study (NHBCS) is an ongoing, prospective study of rural pregnant women and their children, and a pediatric cohort for the NIH-funded Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program. The primary aim of the NHBCS is to investigate the effects of environmental exposures, including use of wood stoves, on fetal growth and childhood development.
A subset of children 3 to 5 years old, nearly 25% of whom live in a home with a wood stove as the primary heating source, participated in a personal monitoring study of PM2.5 exposures. This study is the first to report personal PM2.5 exposure using a wearable sensor on children younger than 5 years, not proximity measurements. Three days’ worth of physical activity and personal air monitoring were collected using the MicroPEM™ for PM2.5.
To date, 272 children have been enrolled in the study to wear the MicroPEM for 72 hours. Exposure data were collected successfully from 244 participants who had more than 48 hours of participation. Participants wore the MicroPEM an average of 70% of their time awake. Across all participants, real-time filter corrected nephelometer PM2.5 concentrations showed a mean of 23.1 µg/m3 (standard deviation, SD = 136). Each filter was analyzed for speciation of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), black carbon (BC), and brown carbon (Br). Average values were 4.2 µg/m3 ETS (SD = 6.1), 0.5 µg/m3 BC (SD = 3.1), and 0.9 µg/m3 BrC (SD = 1.0). Personal PM2.5 data showed higher values for winter-spring months versus other months of the year.
Personal sensors can be worn by young children to measure their air pollution exposure and advance environmental epidemiological research. The data shows seasonal differences in PM2.5 as well as higher levels of ETS exposure over BC and BrC.