Innovation

This report investigates methods with the high sensitivity and low limits of detection needed to analyze a wide range of chemical species in particulate matter collected with personal samplers. Dr. Schauer and colleagues developed sensitive methods to detect trace metals, nonpolar organic compounds, and polar organic compounds in personal samples collected in exposure studies. Methods used in this study are of interest to researchers seeking to gain greater insight into the relationships between the components of inhalable particulates and their health effects.

HEI Communication 12 describes a project by Dr Scott Zeger and colleagues at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health that was funded by HEI to make data and software from the National Morbidity, Mortality, and Air Pollution Study (NMMAPS) available to the wider research and policy communities. This Communication contains the Project Report, which describes the Internet-Based Health and Air Pollution Surveillance System (iHAPSS), along with Comments from some members of the HEI Health Research and Review Committees and other experts who had used the data.

Dr Alison S Geyh and colleagues at Johns Hopkins University evaluated the personal and microenvironmental aerosol speciation sampler (PMASS) prototype developed by Dr. Susanne Hering with HEI funding (HEI Research Report 114). The precision and accuracy of the prototype, which measures PM_2.5 mass, elemental and organic carbon, sulfate, and nitrate, was evaluated in two locations with different PM composition. Baltimore, Maryland (outdoors), and Fresno, California (indoors). Geyh and colleagues set a target of 10% precision and 10% accuracy for all species measured.