SOCAAR Seminar – Marianne Hatzopoulou

Investigating the Role of Transportation Models in Epidemiologic Studies of Traffic Related Air Pollution and Health Effects

Dr. Marianne Hatzopoulou, Associate Professor
Civil Engineering, University of Toronto

From land-use regression to dispersion modeling, this talk explores the development of air pollution exposure surfaces for the City Montreal with a particular emphasis on the role of transportation and emission models in assigning a measure of exposure to traffic-related air pollution. We start by comparing the distribution of the spatial estimates of NO2 derived from a transportation/emissions model, a land-use regression model, and a dispersion model. We investigate the reasons behind the agreement and disagreement between these measures in the context of the land-use and built environment of Montreal. We then compare estimates of health risk using these different exposure estimates relying on two case-control studies of breast and prostate cancer. We ask the question: Under which conditions could transportation models replace expensive monitoring techniques and computationally intensive atmospheric dispersion modelling?

September 30, 2015, 3 – 4 PM | Wallberg Building, 200 College Street | Room 407