AAAR 32nd Annual Conference
September 30 - October 4, 2013
Oregon Convention Center
Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract View
From Rural to Personal Level PM2.5 Concentrations and Their Linkages to Biological Sample Metal Concentrations
QUENTIN MALLOY, Cortina Johnson, Jocelin Deese-Spruill, James Raymer, Jonathan Thornburg, Elizabeth Frey, Richard Perkins, Larry Michael, RTI International
Abstract Number: 519 Working Group: Aerosol Exposure
Abstract The southern Delaware area surrounding the town of Millsboro has been previously designated as a cancer cluster because of the elevated lung and bladder cancer rates. In order to study the potential linkage between the local coal-fired power plant, a two part study was developed to examine regional, residential, and personal PM$_2.5 samples along with biological samples. Thirty-two participants were recruited during for two sampling seasons in order to monitor outdoor residential, indoor residential, personal level PM$_2.5 as well as four ambient and one semi-rural background site. Results indicate that the primary driver for ambient PM$_2.5 within the region is due to long-range transport from the nearby metropolitan areas of Baltimore, Washington D.C. and New York City even with a major coal-fired power plant coming on-line during season 2. Evidence for this includes the geometric mean PM$_2.5 concentrations from background samples showing no statistical difference between sampling seasons (P-value 0.06). Ambient monitors located closer to the power plant did show statistically different (alpha=0.01) PM concentrations; however these were reduced during operation of power plant. Despite this, the majority of participant exposure to PM$_2.5 occurred while residents were indoors. These elevated exposures were captured through use of the RTI MicroPEM. Personal level PM$_2.5 concentrations of 20.3 micrograms per cubic meter, 119% higher than the ambient monitors, were recorded. In addition to elevated PM, optical absorbance and XRF analysis of the samples indicated strong correlations with environmental tobacco smoke. These secondary filter analyses along with blood and urine metals analysis will be presented in order to provide a picture of a population exposure in order to evaluate one possible exposure pathway which may be linked to documented elevated cancer incidences.