Accounting for Mobility in Air Pollution Exposure Estimates in Studies on Long-Term Health Effects

This report, available for downloading below, presents a study led by Kees de Hoogh at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute. de Hoogh and colleagues evaluated whether long-term exposure estimates that account for people’s mobility would improve exposure assessment, using novel agent-based modeling. 

The investigators compared residential-only and mobility-enhanced estimates of exposure to nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter in three adult cohort studies in Switzerland and the Netherlands. Similar associations were reported between residential and mobility-enhanced exposure estimates and various health outcomes, and the estimates themselves were highly correlated. The results suggest that the bias in epidemiological studies based on outdoor concentrations at residential locations might be small and that accounting for mobility might not be important.