Title: Black Carbon as an Additional Indicator of the adverse health effects at urban scale

Biography:

Ornella Salimbene is Environmental Engineer, PhD researcher in Urban and Regional Development at the Department of Environmental and Infrastructure Engineering (DIATI) of the Polytechnic of Turin (Italy). She collaborates with the Environmental and Sanitary Engineering group (Wearve) and with Geomatics Lab of Politecnico of Torino. Her research activities focus on the study of air pollution, its impact on human health and on new possible indicators for air quality management at urban level. O. Salimbene research approach is interdisciplinary and integrates clinical, environmental, and social data into real-time living laboratories on an urban scale. Currently O. Salimbene collaborates with several Italian hospitals, with the School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policies of the University College of Dublin (Ireland) and with the Department of Chemistry-Physics of Industrial and Aerospace Engineering of Toledo of the University of Castilla La Mancha (Spain).

Abstract

Problem: Continuous personal monitoring is a benchmark for assessing exposure to air pollution. European air quality standards for particulate matter (PM) use the mass concentration of PM (PM with aerodynamic diameters ≤ 10 μm (PM10) or ≤2.5 μm (PM2.5)) as the metric. It would be desirable to understand if black carbon (BC) can be a better indicator than PM10 and PM2.5. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to implement social, environmental and clinical data by developing real-time laboratories on an urban scale. This research discusses an integrated approach on three pilot studies developed in the city of Turin (Italy). The activities involved the resident population and some volunteers with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Methodology and Theoretical Orientation: The Living Lab developed in Turin was organized in three pilot studies (LLs). LL#1 involved 15 volunteer citizens residing in Turin who were observed and monitored for a week (November 2021). The BC concentrations detected with AE51 portable sensors were superimposed on the information collected by the urban monitoring network. LL#2 observed (October 2020-October 2021) the respiratory parameters of 50 male volunteers with mild COPD and residing in Turin in areas with different traffic densities. More precisely, 25 volunteers resided in high-traffic areas and 25 in low-traffic areas. LL#2 allowed us to investigate the associations between PM, BC and forced expiratory volume in the 1st second (FEV1). Finally, LL#3 developed a social survey on over 300 Turin citizens who participated in a semi-structured questionnaire on urban air quality and their behaviors adopted in favor of urban air quality. Each apparently different LLs is interconnected by a common denominator: the data collected by users, such as active human- sensors, provide information to be integrated in the management of air quality regulation policies at the local level. Results: A total of 8640 eBC measurements were obtained during LL#1 with an average daily personal exposure of 3.1 µg/m 3 (± SD 1.3). The change in movement patterns and the variability of microenvironments were determinants of exposure. LL#2 showed that high traffic density is significantly associated with lower forced expiratory volume in 1s (FEV1) and forced vital capacity (FVC). LL #2 results highlight that people with persistent respiratory symptoms and residing in busier areas appear to be more vulnerable to BC exposure and have greater sleep wheezing.
Conclusion and Meaning: Preliminary results highlight the potential utility of Living Labs for innovative approaches to designing an urban-scale air quality management plan that also includes BC as a new indicator for protecting human health.