Quantitative estimation of excess mortality for drivers and passengers exposed to particulate matters in long-distance buses
Journal
Atmospheric Environment
Journal Volume
51
Pages
260-267
Date Issued
2012
Author(s)
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to estimate quantitatively the excess mortality for driver/passenger in long-distance buses in terms of long driving time and inhaled particulate matters (PMs) concentrations. This study used an area under the curve (AUC) approach integrating the driving time and a predicted single pulsed PM concentration to estimate the fluctuating PM exposures in long-distance buses. Different peak functions were used to fit a unique fluctuating PM dataset adopted from previous study in Taiwan. We showed that gamma distribution had a best-fitting performance with the minimum values of coefficient of variation (CV) for PM 2.5 and PM 10 of 2.9% and 11.7%. The results also indicated that the predicted CV values for PM 2.5 (5.3%) and PM 10 (14.0%) from fitted normal distributions were also agreeable compared with the original dataset. The results indicated that the PM 2.5-associated excess mortality estimates ranged from 0.64 to 1.04 and 4103-6833 individuals per 10 5 population for passengers under short-term and drivers under long-term PM exposures. Moreover, the interquartile ranges of the excess mortality estimate in the proposed model were 2.5-5.6 times less than that in the original dataset. We concluded that our AUC-based model may successfully reduce the variations in PM exposure estimates, and thereby provide more accurate values for improving risk estimation of future excess mortality attributable to traffic-related air pollutants. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.
SDGs
Type
journal article