Assessment for personal PM2.5 exposure with a modeling method: A panel study in Wuhan, China

Abstract

The adverse health effects from fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exposure have attracted much attention. However, the method to evaluate individual PM2.5 exposure levels in large populations has always been a challenging task. We conducted this study to explore the relationships of ambient PM2.5, meteorological conditions and personal lifestyles with personal PM2.5 exposure and establish an estimated model for personal PM2.5 exposure among community residents in Wuhan. Participants were extracted from Wuhan-Zhuhai cohort and a total of 191 24-h personal PM2.5 measurements were conducted using personal PM2.5 samplers in Spring, 2014, 2017. Ambient PM2.5 concentration, meteorological conditions and personal lifestyles were collected from the nearest fixed air monitoring station, meteorological station and face-to-face investigation, respectively. The average concentration of daily personal PM2.5 exposure was 156.85 μg/m3 with a range of 14.85–443.21 μg/m3 in this study, which was almost twice as high as the ambient PM2.5 concentrations (average 71.16 μg/m3). After stepwise selection and linear mixed model fitting, ambient PM2.5, cigarette consumption, passive smoking, pressure difference, temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed were selected into the final model. Marginal R2 and conditional R2 of this model were 0.604 and 0.635, respectively. R2 of 10-fold cross validation was 0.654. This study provided an estimated model with relatively comprehensive consideration of sources for personal PM2.5 exposure in Wuhan.