A modeling methodology to support evaluation of public health impacts on air pollution reduction programs

Abstract

Environmental public health protection requires a good understanding of the types and locations of pollutant emissions of health concern and their relationship to environmental public health indicators. Therefore, it is necessary to develop the methodologies, data sources, and tools for assessing the public health impact of air pollution reduction programs, also referred to as accountability analysis. Since air quality models are among the main tools that can be used to evaluate the impacts from emissions changes, either due to growth or implement-tation of source control strategies, these approaches play a vital role in most air accountability studies. In this study, we present a modeling methodology to estimate concentrations for multiple pollutants that include both local features (hot spots) and regional transport. The local impacts from mobile sources and significant stationary sources are estimated using a dispersion model (AERMOD). These local details are combined with regional background estimates computed by a photochemical grid model (CMAQ) in a “hybrid” approach to derive total concentrations required for the subsequent human exposure analysis. We demonstrate an application of this methodology in New Haven, Connecticut. The city of New Haven has implemented a comprehensive Clean Air Initiative, which includes a number of federally mandated and voluntary air pollution programs. This project is a collaborative effort with state and local agencies including government, academia, and the New Haven community, to apply and evaluate air quality and human exposure models that can be used with health data and to assess the feasibility of using this information to conduct an air accountability study. Although this study is based in one city, the methodologies developed through this project can have broad application to other areas within the United States and internationally.