Household and Mobility-Influenced Personal PM2.5 Exposures for a Rail-Impacted Environmental Justice Community
Ivette Torres, Khanh Do, Andrea Delgado, Charlotte Mourad, Haofei Yu, CESUNICA IVEY,
University of California, Berkeley Abstract Number: 540
Working Group: Identifying and Addressing Disparate Health and Social Impacts of Exposure to Aerosols and Other Contaminants across Continents, Communities, and Microenvironments
AbstractThe Westside San Bernardino neighborhood is a hot spot of air pollution and high rates of cancer, potentially caused by its proximity to a large industrial facility, the largest concentration of warehouses in the country, and multiple freeways. In addition, geography and wind patterns trap and compound port-related pollutants in the inland valleys. More than 270,000 people living in the surrounding area face a higher risk of cancer solely due to where they live. In an effort to provide data-driven evidence to corroborate community members' lived experiences, personal PM
2.5 monitoring took place from October 2021 through March 2022. We engaged 9-14 community members per week for three weeks at a time. Each participant completed one intake survey to collect demographic and baseline health information, and then each participant completed a dynamic survey at the end of each deployment week to assess perceptions of well-being. Personal monitoring activities indicated a clear trend of higher residential microenvironmental concentrations compared to concentrations in non-residential microenvironments. Additionally, we monitored indoor and ambient PM
2.5 levels for five households (ten total households for ambient monitoring) over six months. Our analysis showed that household PM
2.5 levels had a higher-than-expected average infiltration factor compared to crowdsourced studies. Also, approximately 33% of the time, indoor PM
2.5 levels were greater than ambient PM
2.5 levels due to high frequent indoor emissions or less-than-optimal ventilation. The indoor 98
th percentiles across the households far exceeded the 24-hour NAAQS. We recommend continued indoor air quality monitoring, and we support emissions and exposure mitigation efforts that address nearby historical pollution burdens.