Multinational prediction of household and personal exposure to fine particulate matter (PM) in the PURE cohort study.

Introduction: Use of polluting cooking fuels generates household air pollution (HAP) containing health-damaging levels of fine particulate matter (PM). Many global epidemiological studies rely on categorical HAP exposure indicators, which are poor surrogates of measured PM levels. To quantitatively characterize HAP levels on a large scale, a multinational measurement campaign was leveraged to develop household and personal PM exposure models.

Household and personal air pollution exposure measurements from 120 communities in eight countries: results from the PURE-AIR study.

Background: Approximately 2·8 billion people are exposed to household air pollution from cooking with polluting fuels. Few monitoring studies have systematically measured health-damaging air pollutant (ie, fine particulate matter [PM] and black carbon) concentrations from a wide range of cooking fuels across diverse populations. This multinational study aimed to assess the magnitude of kitchen concentrations and personal exposures to PM and black carbon in rural communities with a wide range of cooking environments.

Personal Exposure to PM Black Carbon and Aerosol Oxidative Potential using an Automated Microenvironmental Aerosol Sampler (AMAS).

Traditional methods for measuring personal exposure to fine particulate matter (PM) are cumbersome and lack spatiotemporal resolution; methods that are time-resolved are limited to a single species/component of PM. To address these limitations, we developed an automated microenvironmental aerosol sampler (AMAS), capable of resolving personal exposure by microenvironment. The AMAS is a wearable device that uses a GPS sensor algorithm in conjunction with a custom valve manifold to sample PM onto distinct filter channels to evaluate home, school, and other (e.

Solid-Phase Extraction Coupled to a Paper-Based Technique for Trace Copper Detection in Drinking Water.

Metal contamination of natural and drinking water systems poses hazards to public and environmental health. Quantifying metal concentrations in water typically requires sample collection in the field followed by expensive laboratory analysis that can take days to weeks to obtain results. The objective of this work was to develop a low-cost, field-deployable method to quantify trace levels of copper in drinking water by coupling solid-phase extraction/preconcentration with a microfluidic paper-based analytical device.