Oriol MARQUET, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain
Monika MACIEJEWSKA, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain
Irene GOMEZ-VARO, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain
In recent years, research on how environmental exposures directly affect human health is gaining increasing attention. To date, scientific evidence has amply demonstrated the associations between daily average exposures to factors such as air pollution, noise and greenness and cardiovascular disease, mental health, and even wellbeing. However, using the residential address to calculate exposures is a major limitation, given that, in real life, most people move beyond their residential areas during their everyday travel. Using GPS location and tracking trajectories can accurately identify people’s space-time trajectories, frequency, and duration which in turn can provide dynamic measures of exposure that stand in contrast to traditional static address-based measures.
GPS tracking, however, is an intensive data technique that requires extensive fieldwork and dedicated study designs and because of that, might not be suited to study all population groups. More research is needed to determine when exactly GPS-tracking data is indispensable to capture the whole extent of environmental exposures. To answer that question, the present study uses data from 113 seniors living in Barcelona that were tracked for 7 days. Using publicly available data on air quality and greenness exposures the study compares seniors’ static and dynamic exposures to NO2, PM10, PM2.5, decibels, and NDVI levels.
Results show how GPS-tracking use may only be necessary in the case of selected contaminants in the case of seniors. While differences between home-based and dynamic measurements on PM10, NO2, and NDVI did not differ significantly, there were significant differences in the case of decibels and PM2.5.
Our results may help future research design decisions aiming at studying seniors’ exposures and demonstrate that static exposure measurements might still be valid in some research designs, without the need to invest in more complicated, intensive data gathering methods.
Mots clés : daily travel|Dynamic exposure assessment|GPS-tracking|seniors mobility
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