AQHI updates

The Air Quality Health index (AQHI) is a communication tool, which sums adverse health risks associated with ozone (O3), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and fine particulate matter (PM2.5), to provide guidance to the public on protecting their health from outdoor air pollution. To improve the current AQHI, this project has three main focuses: (1) to include rural areas, (2) to include more recent years, and (3) to consider the influence of extreme PM2.5 from wildfires on the AQHI. Since rural areas do not have NAPS groundmonitoring stations, we need estimated concentrations from satellite, land use regression models, emission sources and/or other resources. Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) and Carleton University will provide Reforecast Objective Analysis (OA) data and adjusted CMAQ data, respectively. Mortality and morbidity will be available up to 2018. Extreme PM2.5 data affected by changing climate will be analyzed using the Canadian Optimized Statistical Smoke Exposure Model (CanOSSEM).
The project has four objectives to address the concerns related to the AQHI updates:
(1) model improvement to account for correlations among the three specified air pollutants (O3, NO2 and PM2.5);
(2) extended spatial coverage to include rural areas (using Reforecast OA data and Emissionadjusted CMAQ data);
(3) extended temporal coverage to include more recent years (up to 2018 or latest year of health data); and
(4) extended analysis to account for the effects from changing climate such as summer wildfires (using CanOSSEM data).

Note: Urban centres usually have at least one NAPS monitoring station, whereas rural areas do not.