From silos to synergy: a consortium approach to air pollution and public health in Abu Dhabi.

Financial resources alone cannot guarantee effective public health policy. In Abu Dhabi, massive economic growth in the desert climate resulted in concentrated urbanization and led to challenges in the regulation of air pollution. The Environment Agency in Abu Dhabi commissioned us to scope the regulatory challenges for air pollution.

Adopting electric school buses in the United States: Health and climate benefits.

Electric school buses have been proposed as an alternative to reduce the health and climate impacts of the current U.S. school bus fleet, of which a substantial share are highly polluting old diesel vehicles.

Health benefits of vehicle electrification through air pollution in Shanghai, China.

Vehicle electrification has been recognized for its potential to reduce emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases in China. Several studies have estimated how national-level policies of electric vehicle (EV) adoption might bring very large environmental and public health benefits from improved air quality to China. However, large-scale adoption is very costly, some regions derive more benefits from large-scale EV adoption than others, and the benefits of replacing internal combustion engines in specific cities are less known.

Acute exposure to total and source-specific ambient fine particulate matter and risk of respiratory disease hospitalization in Kuwait.

Many epidemiologic studies concerned with acute exposure to ambient PM have reported positive associations for respiratory disease hospitalization. However, few studies have investigated this relationship in Kuwait and extrapolating results from other regions may involve considerable uncertainty due to variations in concentration levels, particle sources and composition, and population characteristics. Local studies can provide evidence for strategies to reduce risks from episodic exposures to high levels of ambient PM and generating hypotheses for evaluating health risks from chronic exposures.

A retrospective assessment of COVID-19 model performance in the USA.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) forecasts from over 100 models are readily available. However, little published information exists regarding the performance of their uncertainty estimates (i.e.

Disparities in Activity and Traffic Fatalities by Race/Ethnicity.

Introduction: Traffic fatalities remain a major public health challenge despite progress made during recent decades. This study develops exposure-based estimates of fatalities per mile traveled for pedestrians, cyclists, and light-duty vehicle occupants and describes disparities by race/ethnicity, including a subanalysis of fatality rates during darkness and in urban areas.

Methods: Estimates of person-miles traveled by mode and race/ethnicity group were derived from the 2017 National Household Travel Survey using replicate weights.

Health benefits of decreases in on-road transportation emissions in the United States from 2008 to 2017.

Decades of air pollution regulation have yielded enormous benefits in the United States, but vehicle emissions remain a climate and public health issue. Studies have quantified the vehicle-related fine particulate matter (PM)-attributable mortality but lack the combination of proper counterfactual scenarios, latest epidemiological evidence, and detailed spatial resolution; all needed to assess the benefits of recent emission reductions. We use this combination to assess PM-attributable health benefits and also assess the climate benefits of on-road emission reductions between 2008 and 2017.

Health benefits of on-road transportation pollution control programs in China.

China started to implement comprehensive measures to mitigate traffic pollution at the end of 1990s, but the comprehensive effects, especially on ambient air quality and public health, have not yet been systematically evaluated. In this study, we analyze the effects of vehicle emission control measures on ambient air pollution and associated deaths attributable to long-term exposures of fine particulate matter (PM) and O based on an integrated research framework that combines scenario analysis, air quality modeling, and population health risk assessment. We find that the total impact of these control measures was substantial.

Assessing the health impacts of electric vehicles through air pollution in the United States.

The environmental consequences of electric vehicles (EV) have been extensively studied, but the literature on their health impacts is scant. At the same time, fine particulate matter (PM), for which transportation is a major source, remains an important public health issue in the United States. Motivated by recent developments in epidemiology and reduced-form air pollution modeling, as well as reductions in power plant emissions, we conduct an updated assessment of health benefits of light-duty vehicle electrification in large metropolitan areas (MSAs) in the United States.

Global Effect Factors for Exposure to Fine Particulate Matter.

We evaluate fine particulate matter (PM) exposure-response models to propose a consistent set of global effect factors for product and policy assessments across spatial scales and across urban and rural environments. Relationships among exposure concentrations and PM-attributable health effects largely depend on location, population density, and mortality rates. Existing effect factors build mostly on an essentially linear exposure-response function with coefficients from the American Cancer Society study.