1 / 20

Diesel Exhaust in Rural Alaska

Diesel Exhaust in Rural Alaska. Mary Ellen Gordian, MD. Sources of Diesel Exhaust. In urban areas Traffic especially trucks Heavy equipment In rural areas Home heating Generating electricity. Why is Diesel a Concern?.

jermaine-roth
Download Presentation

Diesel Exhaust in Rural Alaska

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Diesel Exhaust in Rural Alaska Mary Ellen Gordian, MD

  2. Sources of Diesel Exhaust In urban areas • Traffic especially trucks • Heavy equipment In rural areas • Home heating • Generating electricity

  3. Why is Diesel a Concern? • People experimentally exposed to diesel exhaust (DE) have 16 x greater response to ragweed allergen than people not exposed • People exposed to DE make IgE to new antigen exposure; people not exposed make IgA, IgG, but not IgE

  4. Traffic Exposure Affects Health • Children living near to freeways in Holland have stronger symptoms, reduced FEV1 • Children hospitalized for asthma live near high traffic areas as compared to children hospitalized for GI problems in U.K. • Children living near traffic in Japan cough more

  5. Traffic Affects Health in Anchorage Anchorage study (2002-2003): young children living near high-traffic areas had greater risk of asthma than children living in low-traffic areas • Study controlled for family income

  6. Categorization of Traffic Exposure at 100-meter Buffer for children living for more than 1 yr at current location No Asthma Asthma Total Asthma rate _______________________________________________________ Exposure Low 471 49 520 9.4% Medium 161 21 182 11.5% High 44 10 54 18.5% Total 676 80 776

  7. Is Diesel exhaust a concern in rural Alaska? • Looking for worst-case scenario to determine whether people in rural Alaska affected by diesel exhaust…. • Sufficient # people to measure effect • Valley with prevailing winds driving exhaust into residential areas • People interested in finding answers

  8. Research Plan to Determine Health Effects of Diesel Exposure • Recruit 10 adult non-smokers with asthma • Use personal monitors to determine their exposure to diesel exhaust • Use passive vapor badges to determine personal exposure to VOCs • Measure daily FEV1, FVC, pH of EBC • Record daily symptoms

  9. Details of Data Collection Exposures • Personal monitor pumps with DPM cassettes used to measure organic and elemental carbon exposure • Passive vapor badges used to measure VOC exposure

  10. Research Design Was Planned With EPA Scientists • Panel study of non-smoking adults with asthma • Measure daily exposure to diesel exhaust in winter • Measure daily exposure to volatile organic compounds • Measure daily changes in lung function each day for 2 weeks

  11. What was Done • Multiple IRBs approved project. Six months to obtain approvals, UAA, Area Office, YKHC • Two local residents trained to calibrate pumps, set up monitors, and do spirometry tests • Cultural consultant hired to help recruit participants

  12. Details of Data Collectionfor Health Outcome Measures • Spirometry daily to measure FEV1, FVC • Rtubes measure daily airway acidity • Symptoms recorded daily • Medications used recorded daily

  13. Comparing OC, EC Indoors with FEV1 and FVC • 25 days of measured EC, OC indoors and usable spirometry results • No correlation between change from personal average FEV1 or FVC and measured OC or EC • Nonparametric tests negative

  14. Challenges • Only five adult non-smokers with asthma willing to participate. None participated more than 1 week • We got permission to recruit teenagers from high school; all 3 were smokers • Pumps stopped sporadically • Vapor badges not closed properly

  15. How to Save a Failed Study We decided we could not determine a health effect with so few participants, so we would try to document amount of exposure

  16. We compared exposure in the village with exposure in the city • Measured diesel exhaust in 30 indoor locations in village, including • Homes • School • Post office • Store • Tribal office • Measured diesel exhaust in 20 indoor locations in Anchorage, all homes

  17. Preliminary Results: Average indoor carbon

  18. How much diesel exhaust has been found in other places? • Mean EC concentration 1.1 μg/m3 indoors and outdoors. Measured at 173 homes in Houston, TX, Los Angeles County, CA, and Elizabeth, NJ • Average indoor concentrations of OC (17.1 μg/m3 ) and EC (2.8 μg/m3 ) in Hong Kong during March – April 2004

  19. Challenges of Project • Although many adults have asthma in community, few are non-smokers. Only five participants recruited • So we only monitored indoor air for diesel in as many homes as possible

  20. Conclusion Diesel exhaust exposure indoors in rural Alaskan village about as high as exposure to diesel exhaust in Anchorage

More Related