Clean Air Tourism: Assessment of Individual Exposure to Indoor and Outdoor Air Pollution on the Las Vegas Strip Using Portable Sensors, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
Presented By: Carlos Arambula, Nevada State College & Marina Vanderberg, Nevada State College
Description: Poor air quality has been shown to increase the rates of mortality and morbidity in urban environments, where most of the world’s population lives. Urban dwellers increasingly tend to spend more time indoors. Indoor air quality is assumed to be better than outdoors’ due to extensive sources of contaminants in the later. Exposure to outdoor pollutants varies due to local meteorological conditions. In contrast, indoor air quality is determined by indoor pollution sources and the ventilation systems. Non-smoking indoor areas should have better air quality than smoking areas if ventilation systems are able to sufficiently contain drifting tobacco smoke to avoid the risk to secondhand smoke exposure for non-smokers.
This study presents the measurement of outdoor air quality using portable sensors along the Las Vegas Strip, a year-long touristic destination in Nevada, USA with ~70,000 daily traffic counts at very low speed and more than 55,000 pedestrians. Additionally, risk to secondhand smoke at smoking- and non-smoking areas inside six casinos was assessed. Monitoring air quality will help to assess the health risks at these environments. Measurements were taken twice each season for one year to evaluate air quality seasonal variability. Measured parameters included particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10 in µg/m3) by two Nova SDL 607 wearable air quality monitors and carbon dioxide/carbon monoxide (in ppm) by a pSense portable CO2 meter. Air temperature (°C) and relative humidity (%) were also recorded simultaneously.
Smokers were identified as the major source of particulate matter in both, outdoor and indoor environments. Proximity to smokers resulted in PM2.5 concentration increases up to 343 and 854 µg/m3 in the outdoor and the indoor smoking-areas microenvironments, respectively. We will further discuss individual exposure, air quality seasonal changes and the relationships between PM2.5, PM10, CO2 concentrations and environmental conditions at each environment.