Modeling Environmental Exposures in the Older Adult Population

“Data sources available for modeling environmental exposures in the older adult population,” focuses on information sources and data available for modeling environmental exposures in the U.S. for people 60 years and older. The report contains similar information found in EPA's Exposure Factors Handbook with a focus only on older adults. The report is centered on the inputs needed for two of EPA's inhalation exposure models, the Air Pollution Exposure and Stochastic Human Exposure and Dose Simulation models.

This report is relevant for exposure assessors and contains data available for modeling exposures to the aging population. This data allows scientists to evaluate results obtained from the modeling assessments for older adults, (distribution of breathing rates seen in a particulate matter intake dose rate assessment are realistic; elder's time spent in motor vehicles, outdoors, or indoors). Intra-individual and inter-individual variability measures will be discussed.

The report also includes a review of physical activity data available for evaluating model outputs. It also includes discussion of how general health status of older adults might affect exposure to environmental contaminants and an assessment of the interactions between exposure and possible impacts on elders on environmental loadings. The latter category largely focuses on pharmaceutical discharges into bodies of water.

The report provides information on developing conditional probabilities for that portion of the aging population that has arthritis and one or more common co-morbidities. This presentation will cover this new resource with data and applications for exposure assessors. This is a valuable tool for modeling elder exposures.