Research

Health effects from indoor and outdoor exposure to fine particulate matter in life cycle impact assessment

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Abstract

Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution has been estimated to contribute more than 7% to the total global human disease burden from 1990 to 2013 (http://healthdata.org/gbd). Ambient (outdoor) and household indoor PM2.5 exposures are reported to account for 41% and 58% of this impact, respectively, emphasizing the need to include both, outdoor and indoor exposure into overall estimates of healt h burdens in life cycle impact assessment. However, lacking clear guidance on how to consistently include health effects from exposure to PM2.5 in life cycle perspective, practitioners fail to report related life cycle impacts. To address this gap, a global initiative has worked on building a coupled indoor-outdoor intake fraction framework combining exposure to PM2.5 emitted indoors and outdoors with exposure to PM2.5 formed indoors and outdoors from chemical reactions. An exposure-response model derived from ambient PM2.5 concentrations is consistently combined with exposures from indoor and outdoor sources. All factors are systematically built into a model parameterized for different archetypal outdoor and indoor settings, such as specific residential and occupational settings and different urban area sizes. Model and parameters are tested in a case study on the production and rocessing of rice in three distinct scenarios covering urban China, rural India and U.S.-Europe. Recommendations are to use this coupled, generic framework whenever emission locations are unknown and to apply spatial models henever emission locations are known. Our study constitutes a first step towards providing guidance on how to include health effects from PM2.5 indoor air exposures in product-oriented impact assessments.