Annoyance from vehicular air pollution: Exposure-response relationships for Norway

In this study exposure-response relationships between annoyance from dust/grime and exhaust/smell, and indicators of air pollution (NO2, PM10 and PM2.5) for Norway have been established. The relationships show a significant increase in air pollution annoyance as a function of the exposure indicators. The error bands for the estimated relationships are narrow, in spite of the fact that the data is collected from different study periods, in two different Norwegian cities, and in 15 different study areas within these cities. The relationships are of the same quality that one can observe between transportation noise and noise annoyance. Other important findings are that the people become highly annoyed from air pollution at exposure values commonly occurring in European larger city areas and that lie below current European Union (EU) air pollution quality guideline values. Air pollution assessments for each individual respondent dwelling locations are based on 2000+ hourly values of NO2, PM10 and PM2.5 calculated over a 3-month period. The calculations for each of the 4500 respondent dwelling locations take into account rush-hours and actual wind directions, and have been quality assured against air pollution measurement station time series. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.