• RI-URBANS project has published a report on the best practices to evaluate the association between exposure to nanoparticles and health outcomes

• The document includes new air quality metrics and will be applied in some of the pilot’s cities of the project (Barcelona, Athens, and Zurich).

The RI-URBANS project has published a report on the best practices for evaluating the association between short-term exposure to air pollution and health outcomes (mortality and morbidity).

Developed by the Barcelona Institute of Global Health (ISGlobal) in Spain, the document is part of Work Package 2, which focuses on evaluating the use of measurements of new air quality metrics, especially nanoparticles, for improved health impact assessment and epidemiological health studies.

All the recommendations described in the report can be applied to any air pollutant, including nanoparticles. The report also includes recommendations on the type of data needed, sources for the health data, and common challenges of health data collection. A summary of two types of analyses, time series analysis and health impact assessment, completes the document.

This report addresses one of the RI-URBANS’ tasks: improving the evaluation of health effects in epidemiologic time series studies. Here particulate matter, particulate matter components, black carbon, nanoparticles, and individual source contributions are used to complement data on regulated pollutants (PM2.5, PM10, NO2) for epidemiological studies and impact assessment. This allows demonstrating the added value of new metrics beyond routinely measured pollutants.

The document links the time series of new air quality metrics to those of daily mortality and hospital admissions and meteorological parameters. The authors will also analyse some pilot cities (Barcelona, Spain; Athens, Greece; and Zurich, Switzerland) and analyse additional cities from the compiled time series in Work Package 1.