Ozone & Nitrogen Dioxide Outdoor Personal Exposure Assessment of African American & Hispanic Adolescences

This paper presents the summary of ozone (O3) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) personal exposure concentrations of Chicago inner-city African American and Hispanic adolescence participating in the 2004 summer camp program operated by the City of Chicago Park District (CPD). The primary objective was to assess the data collected during the six week study, and determined whether NO2 and O3 adolescents’ personal exposure levels in an urban environment were representative to ambient air concentration data collected at the nearest U.S Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) fixed-site air monitoring stations. When comparing NO2 and O3 personal exposure and area concentrations against the annual National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), USEPA Cicero and USEPA Com-Ed fixed sites; our study shows substantial variation with NO2 concentrations, but consistent higher levels against the USEPA Cicero and USEPA Com-Ed data. Furthermore, O3 average weekly personal and area concentrations were substantially below the NAAQS and significantly higher against both USEPA fixed-sites. Although O3 area concentrations are consistent with other studies, the results contradict what we scientifically know about O3 formation. This is evident that contributions from diverse indoor and outdoor microenvironments along with the ratio of time spent outdoors versus indoors is of importance to accurately estimate personal NO2 and O3 exposures. To our knowledge this is the first study done in Chicago that invested adolescent ambient air pollutant exposures. By design, this study coincided with the 2000 Harvard Southern California Chronic Exposure Study.