During the past two decades, efforts have been made to further reduce particulate air pollution across New York State through various Federal and State policy implementations. Air quality has also been affected by economic drivers like the 2007-2009 recession and changing costs for different approaches to electricity generation. Prior work has focused on particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter ≤2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLand-use regression (LUR) models provide location and time specific estimates of exposure to air pollution and thereby improve the sensitivity of health effects models. However, they require pollutant concentrations at multiple locations along with land-use variables. Often, monitoring is performed over short durations using mobile monitoring with research-grade instruments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSignificant changes in emission sources have occurred in the northeastern United States over the past decade, due in part to the implementation of emissions standards, the introduction and addition of abatement technologies for road transport, changes in fuel sulfur content for road and non-road transport, as well as economic impacts of a major recession and differential fuel prices. These changes in emission scenarios likely affected the concentrations of airborne submicron particles. This study investigated the characteristics of 11-500nm particle number concentrations and their size spectra in Rochester, NY during the past 15years (2002 to 2016).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere is concern regarding the heterogeneity of exposure to airborne particulate matter (PM) across urban areas leading to negatively biased health effects models. New, low-cost sensors now permit continuous and simultaneous measurements to be made in multiple locations. Measurements of ambient PM were made from October to April 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 to assess the spatial and temporal variability in PM and the relative importance of traffic and wood smoke to outdoor PM concentrations in Rochester, NY, USA.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Previously, we reported a 18% increased odds of ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) associated with each 7.1 µg/m(3) increase in PM2.5 concentration in the hour prior to MI onset.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the spring of 2008, a 260MWe coal-fired power plant (CFPP) located in Rochester, New York was closed over a 4month period. Using a 2-years data record, the impacts of the shutdown of the CFPP on nearby ambient concentrations of three Hg species were quantified. The arithmetic average ambient concentrations of gaseous elemental mercury (GEM), gaseous oxidized mercury (GOM), and particulate mercury (PBM) during December 2007-November 2009 were 1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBlack carbon (BC), an important component ofthe atmospheric aerosol, has climatic, environmental, and human health significance. In this study, BC was continuously measured using a two-wavelength aethalometer (370 nm and 880 nm) in Rochester; New York, from January 2007 to December 2010. The monitoring site is adjacent to two major urban highways (I-490 and I-590), where 14% to 21% of the total traffic was heavy-duty diesel vehicles.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the United States, residential wood combustion (RWC) is responsible for 7.0% of the national primary PM(2.5) emissions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this study, various laboratory and field tests were performed to develop an effective automated particle-bound ROS sampling-analysis system. The system uses 2' 7'-dichlorofluorescin (DCFH) fluorescence method as a nonspecific, general indicator of the particle-bound ROS. A sharp-cut cyclone and a particle-into-liquid sampler (PILS) were used to collect PM(2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe variation in composition and concentration of coarse particles in Rochester, a medium-sized city in western New York, was studied using UNC passive samplers and computer-controlled scanning electron microscopy (CCSEM). The samplers were deployed in a 5 × 5 grid (2 km × 2 km per grid cell) for 2-3 week periods in two seasons (September 2008 and May 2009) at 25 different sites across Rochester. CCSEM analysis yielded size and elemental composition for individual particles and analyzed more than 800 coarse particles per sample.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnviron Health Perspect
December 2010
Background: Diabetes confers an increased risk for cardiovascular effects of airborne particles.
Objective: We hypothesized that inhalation of elemental carbon ultrafine particles (UFP) would activate blood platelets and vascular endothelium in people with type 2 diabetes.
Methods: In a randomized, double-blind, crossover trial, 19 subjects with type 2 diabetes inhaled filtered air or 50 µg/m³ elemental carbon UFP (count median diameter, 32 nm) by mouthpiece for 2 hr at rest.
The particle number concentrations in the size range of 10-500 nm were measured inside and outside of a commercial building in Rochester, New York from 2005 to 2009. The indoor ventilation conditions were controlled by a heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system. The overall average indoor and outdoor particle number concentrations were 2166 cm(-3) and 5214 cm(-3), respectively.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSources contributing to the submicron particles (100-470 nm) measured between January 2002 and December 2007 at two different New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYS DEC) sites in Rochester, NY were identified and apportioned using a bilinear receptor model, positive matrix factorization (PMF). Measurements of aerosol size distributions and number concentrations for particles in the size range of 10-500 nm have been made since December 2001 to date in Rochester. The measurements are being made using a scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS) consisting of a DMA and a CPC (TSI models 3071 and 3010, respectively).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Ultrafine particles (UFP) may contribute to the cardiovascular effects of exposure to particulate air pollution, partly because of their relatively efficient alveolar deposition and potential to enter the pulmonary vascular space.
Objectives: This study tested the hypothesis that inhalation of elemental carbon UFP alters systemic vascular function.
Methods: Sixteen healthy subjects (mean age, 26.
Particulate air pollution is associated with asthma exacerbations and increased morbidity and mortality from respiratory causes. Ultrafine particles (particles less than 0.1 microm in diameter) may contribute to these adverse effects because they have a higher predicted pulmonary deposition, greater potential to induce pulmonary inflammation, larger surface area, and enhanced oxidant capacity when compared with larger particles on a mass basis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAmbient air particles in the ultrafine size range (diameter < 100 nm) may contribute to the health effects of particulate matter. However, there are few data on ultrafine particle deposition during spontaneous breathing, and none in people with asthma. Sixteen subjects with mild to moderate asthma were exposed for 2 hr, by mouthpiece, to ultrafine carbon particles with a count median diameter (CMD) of 23 nm and a geometric standard deviation of 1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUltrafine particles (diameter < 100 nm) may be important in the health effects of air pollution, in part because of their predicted high respiratory deposition. However, there are few measurements of ultrafine particle deposition during spontaneous breathing. The fractional deposition for the total respiratory tract of ultrafine carbon particles (count median diameter = 26 nm, geometric standard deviation = 1.
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