Date: December 2, 2009 (Wednesday)
Time: 12:30 – 14:00 (sandwich lunch from 12:30 –12:45; seminar begins at 12:45)
Venue: Mrs Chen Yang Foo Oi Telemedicine Centre, 2/F, Room A2-08, William M.W. Mong Block, Faculty of Medicine Building, 21 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong

Abstract:

Air quality management strategies have resulted in significant improvements in urban air quality in most metropolitan areas of the world. These actions have traditionally utilized an airshed approach focused on point source emissions, and on motor vehicle as a proportion of total emissions. Despite general trends towards improved air quality, pollution remains a concern with clear evidence of substantial public health impacts. Motor vehicles and marine vessels are major contributors to air pollution in many locations and their emissions results in variability in pollutant concentrations within cities.

In this presentation, Professor Brauer will review approaches to characterize within-city gradients in air pollution related to transportation, focusing on land-use regression models and remote sensing approaches. Professor Brauer will then discuss findings of epidemiological studies indicating adverse health impacts (including birth outcomes, childhood respiratory disease and adult cardiovascular disease and associated mortality) related to spatial variability in pollution levels. He will conclude with a discussion of mitigation strategies and the implications of this emerging body of research for healthy urban design.

Bio-sketch:

Professor Michael Brauer is Professor in the School of Environmental Health at The University of British Columbia (UBC). He also holds an associate appointment in the Division of Respiratory Medicine at UBC. Professor Brauer received bachelor’s degrees in Biochemistry and Environmental Sciences from the University of California-Berkeley (1986) and a doctorate in Environmental Health from Harvard University (1990). He was a visiting scientist at the Institue of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at Arhus University in Denmark (1991), at the Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences at Utrecht University in The Netherlands (200) and at the East-West Center in Hawaii, USA (2008).

Professor Brauer’s research emphasis is on the assessment of exposure and health impacts of air pollution, with specific interest in transportation-related and biomass air pollution. He has participated in monitoring and epidemiological studies throughout the world (U.S., Canada, Mexico, Asia, eastern/western Europe) and served on advisory committees to the World Health Organization, the US National Academy of Sciences, the International Joint Commission and governments in North America and Asia. He is a member of the outdoor air pollution expert working group of the Global Burden of Disease Project, and the Review and International Scientific Oversight Committees of the Health Effects Institute.