Revised July 2003. A field comparison of four bioaerosol samplers, the Reuter Centrifugal Sampler (RCS), the Andersen N6 Single Stage (N6), the Surface Air System Super 90, and the Air-o-Cell sampler (AOC), was conducted in a variety of public buildings for the measurement of fungal aerosols to compare sampling performance efficiencies and to collect baseline data for a pool of buildings.

Conclusions that can be drawn from earlier studies on noise and children’s blood pressure are limited due to inconsistent results, methodological problems and the focus on school noise exposure. This paper reports on a study investigating the effects of aircraft and road traffic noise exposure on children’s blood pressure and heart rate.

Part of the Border Air Quality Study is the linking of a birth cohort, consisting of all children born in the Georgia Air Basin of British Columbia during 1999-2002, with residential air pollution exposure histories beginning at conception. The goal of this study is to determine the impact of air pollution on various health outcomes (adverse birth outcomes, bronchiolitis, otitis media, bronchitis, and asthma) during prenatal and early childhood development. The birth cohort has been linked to the BC Perinatal Database Registry. This report describes a chart abstraction study, conducted at BC Women and Children’s Hospital, to determine the consistency of key information on maternal risk factor data and to asses the reliability of data coding from patient hospital charts and prenatal care into the perinatal database. BC Women and Children's Hospital was selected for the chart review because it has the largest number of births in the province (approximately 7,000/year).

A study to examine the range of expected concentrations of particles and other traffic related air pollutants at roadside and non-roadside locations and to link measured concentrations to geographic variables.

An assessment of public health impacts associated with ambient air pollution.

An investigation into the acute and long-term health impacts associated with exposure to biomass fires in Southeast Asia.

This project uses remote sensing data and ground based air monitoring data to develop a regional database of particulate air pollution levels and assesses population exposure to air pollution associated with the Southeast Asian forest fires 1997-1998.

A survey to measure several indoor air quality parameters inside school buses.

Ice arena air quality problems resulting from ice re-surfacers.

The School of Occupational and Environmental Health was contracted to develop spatial regression models for Greater Vancouver similar to those developed or underway for the metropolitan areas of Toronto, Montreal and Hamilton. This report briefly introduces the rationale for such models and gives detailed discussion of our methods and results. The objectives and deliverables are outlined below.