Cambridge begins pilot study on car pollution

PUBLISHED by The Cambridge Chronicle

Cambridge —Recent nationwide studies showing a correlation between proximity to major highways and higher health risks has prompted the Cambridge Public Health Department to begin a small study of its own, public health officials said.


Starting this week, the department will begin training volunteers for the pilot phase of community-based study on ultrafine particles — very small air pollution particles found near major highways — conducted in Central Square throughout the rest of March, said Sam Lipson, the department’s director of environmental health.

“My primary goal over the long term is to get a picture of the community,” Lipson said. “We can compare Cambridge to other communities, and put it on scale somewhere … should we feel OK about where we are right now, or are we worse off than we thought?”

The purpose of the program is to work out any “kinks” in the procedure, and a more long-term set of data will be needed to make assessments, Lipson said. If the pilot program goes smoothly, the department hopes to duplicate the study in the summer to correct for weather interferences.

About 20 people have already volunteered, a few of them atmospheric scientists, but anyone can participate in the study, he said. After volunteers are trained, they are assigned to a three-hour walking route to take over 30 samples at different locations.

The department already owns or is borrowing the equipment used to measure the amount of air pollution in a given location. The only additional costs for the study are, at most, $7,000 in consultation and analysis fees, Lipson said.

The Harvard School of Public Health and the Cambridge Climate Protection Action Committee are also contributing volunteers, he said.

The Public Health Department is also working with the Museum of Science to host a forum on May 3 at 7 p.m. to discuss potential policy implications of the data.

“We may get some insight provided about, ‘What are the promising areas of policy that generate support?’” Lipson said.

Lipson said the reliability of the data is too uncertain at the pilot stage of the study to begin considering the policy consequences, unlike past studies conducted in Somerville that have supported demands for better public transportation. He said he hopes the study can be conducted over 10 to 15 years in different parts of Cambridge to detect changes or patterns in air quality.

The relationship between living close to a highway and developing high risks of cardiac and respiratory diseases has been a focus of several studies in the past few years, Lipson said. The findings have culminated in the biggest research breakthrough on the effects of air pollution from automobile emissions in the last ten years, he said.

The study’s impact may be limited without a large enough time commitment by volunteers, because the pilot phase must be conducted before winter ends in the next few weeks, Lipson said. Consultants have recommended collecting data for a cold and warm weather period, three times each day, to control the interfering factors, he said.

“We’d like to build a solid foundation to look back on a few years from now,” Lipson said. “It would be fun to look back and say we have good data in the city that’s useful for people looking at an urban environment.”