Abstract
Air pollution is probably the most intensely studied field in today’s environmental health research. The extensive body of literature on health effects associated with air pollution exposure has lead to prioritization of air pollution as public health risk factor and air quality regulations worldwide. At current levels air pollution, however,
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still has a significant health impact. Science could play an important role in the continuing policy debate on this issue, by providing a solid evidence basis for the decision makers. The primary objective of this thesis is to provide evidence of the health effects of traffic related air pollution and potential mitigation measures relevant to Public Health Services in the Netherlands.
Two land use regression models to estimate long-term exposure to traffic related air pollution were developed and evaluated. Both models predicted NO2-concentrations well. As we developed these models to estimate concentrations at unmeasured locations, we wanted to obtain insight in the predictive performance at independent measurement sites. At independent measurement sites in Amsterdam, a lower percentage of variability was explained than for the measurement sites on which the models were based.
Elevated prevalence of hospital admission is not only related to short-term episodes of air pollution as is known from previous research by others, but also with long-term exposure to modest levels of air pollution. Traffic related air pollution in the area of residence is associated with the community prevalence of hospital admissions: Age, sex and income adjusted Prevalence Ratios showed exposure-response relations for asthma, chronic pulmonary obstructive disease, ischemic heart disease, stroke and all cardiovascular causes. Elevated ratios were seen at air pollution levels well below the EU Limit Value for nitrogen dioxide.
Air pollution may promote type 2 diabetes by increasing adipose inflammation and insulin resistance. We examined the relation between long-term exposure to traffic-related air pollution and type 2 diabetes prevalence among subjects aged 50 to 75 years, and did not find consistent associations.
Promising measures to mitigate air pollution showed to be effective, yet to a limited extent. The air quality effects of a speed limit reduction from 100kph to 80 kph on a section of the Amsterdam ring highway were studied at an air quality measurement site next to the freeway. Modest roadside concentration decreases were demonstrated: Controlling for daily traffic, congestion and weather, the traffic contribution decreased by 2.2 µg/m3 for PM10, by 0.4 µg/m3 for PM1 and by 3.6 µg/m3 for Black Smoke.
Policy makers often consider limitation of infiltration of outdoor air pollution into the indoor environment by filtration an opportunity to reduce population exposure. We performed an experiment to obtain more knowledge on the practical effectiveness of such fine particle filtration systems. In a school, we tested three different ventilation systems. Indoor and outdoor air pollution concentrations were measured and we studied the infiltration of particulate matter during each of the system tests. Fine particle filtration of indoor air was able to limit the infiltration of pollution, though indoor air quality was still importantly dependent on outdoor concentrations.
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