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Urban Physical Environments and Health
Research Interest Group

Photo: Downtown Toronto

Our Focus

Investigators

Project Descriptions

  1. Use of 911 Ambulance Dispatch Data for the Syndromic Surveillance of Heat- related Illness in Toronto
  2. School Grounds & Health: Investigating the Influence of School Ground Design on Children's Activity & Related Health Benefits
  3. The municipal road hierarchy and neighbourhood pedestrian environments
  4. The Use of Traffic Intensity for Health Impact Studies and Air Quality Scenarios
  5. Measuring Concentrations of PCBs and PBDEs in Indoor Air & Dust

Selected Presentations


Our Focus

The goal of this RIG is to provide knowledge that will feed into policies aimed at improving health outcomes related to the quality of the physical environment.  Our approach is multidisciplinary, with representation of researchers from physical, health and applied science disciplines, along with policy makers from municipal to federal levels of government, and community representatives.  This RIG is best suited for research proposals with the common theme of characterizing the urban physical environment and drawing connections with potential health impacts. 

This RIG builds on policy-directed research completed or underway by several researchers.  Topics of interest include: contaminant concentrations; investigating the link between exposure to air pollutants and cardiovascular outcomes; exposure of urban fishers to contaminants and development of measures to mitigate risk; and climate change futures in southern Ontario

This RIG is currently under redevelopment – check back for our new focus!


Investigators

  • Monica Bienefeld (Environmental Protection Office, Toronto Public Health)
  • Anne Bell (Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University)
  • Donald Cole (Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Toronto)
  • Cameron Collyer (Evergreen Foundation)
  • Miriam Diamond (Geography, University of Toronto)
  • Paul Hess (Geography and Program in Planning, University of Toronto)
  • Leslie Jermyn (Anthropology, University of Toronto)
  • Beth Milroy (Urban & Regional Planning, Ryerson University)
  • Audrey Smargiassi (Centre for Studies in Health and Environment, University of Quebec)
  • Loren Vanderlinden (Environmental Protection Office, Toronto Public Health)

Project Descriptions

1. Use of 911 Ambulance Dispatch Data for the Syndromic Surveillance of Heat- related Illness in Toronto

Principal Investigator(s):  
Dr. Donald Cole (Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Toronto)

Lead Community and/or Policy Partners:
Toronto Emergency Medical Services; TPH- Communicable Disease & Emergency Preparedness, University of Toronto, Dept. of Family & Community Medicine & Public Health Sciences; Sunnybrook & Women's College Health Services Centre

Description:
The adverse effect of heat on health in urban communities is of major concern, and will likely become even more important with global warming. In Toronto, although a heat alert system exists, there is currently no method for monitoring heat-related illness (HRI) in the community. As a result, there is a lack of information regarding the impact of HRI on members of the community and the urban areas that are most severely affected. This study will explore the development a surveillance system using 911 ambulance dispatch data to monitor HRI in Toronto. It will both indicate the burden and location of HRI in Toronto so that public health interventions and policies may be appropriately developed and targeted in order to mitigate the negative health effects associated with high ambient temperatures

Summary

Final Report


2. School Grounds & Health: Investigating the Influence of School Ground Design on Children's Activity & Related Health Benefits

Principal Investigator(s):  
Dr. Cameron Collyer (Evergreen)

Lead Community and/or Policy Partners:
York University; Evergreen; Toronto District School Board

Description:
School settings can have a significant impact on children’s health (World Health Organization, 2003). The school ground, in particular, is an important aspect of the school setting, with the potential to shape the quantity and quality of children’s physical activity and health in many ways. Researchers have identified a number of social, mental and physical health benefits related to green school ground design. Research into the relationship between green school grounds and physical activity, however, is still in the preliminary stages. Further studies are needed to corroborate and build upon the findings to date through direct observation, measurement and the involvement of the target population: school children. This project will support scholarship in this emerging area of research, through a literature review, the assessment and piloting of innovative research methods, and the building of collaborative research partnerships between academics and community groups.

Report on Results of the Pilot Study on School Grounds and Health

Our garden is colour blind, inclusive and warm.


3. The municipal road hierarchy and neighbourhood pedestrian environments

Principal Investigator(s):
Dr. Paul Hess (Dept of Geography, University of Toronto) 

Lead Community and/or Policy Partner:
Pedestrian Planning Network

Description:
This research asks whether municipalities incorporate issues of pedestrian safety, comfort, and convenience when applying the road classification system used in North America.  Consisting of arterial, collector and local streets, the road hierarchy shapes the pedestrian environment of neighbourhoods, but its operation is largely invisible to the urban bureaucracy. We will make the hierarchy visible through a review of relevant policy documents and interviews with Toronto planners, engineers, and officials. Research products include a document for community partners advocating pedestrian safety, and a proposal for a multi-jurisdictional study. The research connects health, through encouraging safe walking, to neighbourhoods via streets.

"Making Toronto's Streets" (September 2006)


4. The Use of Traffic Intensity for Health Impact Studies and Air Quality Scenarios

Principal Investigator(s):
Dr. Miriam Diamond (Dept of Geography, University of Toronto) and Dr. Audrey Smargiassi (Montreal Dept of Public Health)

Lead Community and/or Policy Partners:
Montreal Public Health, Toronto Public Health

Description:
The link between vehicular traffic, air pollution and adverse health effects continues to be a critical issue on the urban health agenda.  The broad aim of the research is to develop knowledge and practices leading to reducing the risk of adverse health impacts attributable to traffic-related pollution.  Our short-term goal is to develop one or more research projects aimed at understanding current and future relationships between intra- and inter-city traffic and adverse health outcomes, the results of which can be used to influence policy and public health interventions.  The research, which will focus on intra- and inter-city traffic in the Montreal-Toronto-Windsor corridor, will have retrospective and prospective components.  The retrospective component will examine the interactions among traffic, social inequity and respiratory health with the objective of conducting a fine-scale examination that will use housing as a proxy for socio-economic circumstance.  The prospective component will explore future traffic-emissions-air pollution scenarios based on trends in demographics, transportation patterns, fuel mixes, and climate change.   


5. Measuring Concentrations of PCBs and PBDEs in Indoor Air & Dust

Principal Investigator(s):
Miriam Diamond, Matt Robson, Lisa Melymuk, Susan Csiszar ( University of Toronto ) and Stuart Harrad ( University of Birmingham)

Lead Community and/or Policy Partners:
Fe de Leon, Canadian Environmental Law Association

Indoor dust can be an important pathway for our exposure to a range of contaminants found in the indoor environment as building materials (e.g., PCBs, lead from old paint) and consumer products (the brominated flame retardants, polybrominated diphenyl ethers or PBDEs, perfluorinated compounds such as those found in Scotch guard and Teflon, mercury as found in thermometers and thermostats).  Inhalation of indoor air is also a potential pathway but in many cases air concentrations are too low to be a major contributor.  However, the release of indoor air via ventilation could be the route whereby the compounds enter the outdoors.  Once outdoors, these persistent compounds have the potential to enter our food supply which is another key route of exposure (e.g., PCBs and mercury in fish). This study measures the concentrations of PCBs and PBDEs in indoor air and dust by deploying passive air samplers in participants offices/homes for one month.  This project is being conducted simultaneously in the United Kingdom (Birmingham area) and New Zealand through a collaboration with researchers Dr. Stuart Harrad and doctoral student Catalina Ibarra de Moore of University of Birmingham and Dr. Jeroen Douwes in New Zealand. This research fits into a larger goal of assessing sources and route of exposure of these contaminants via multiple pathways and as a function of time (we intend to estimate the latter through mathematical modeling).  We also aim to put this information to use in research aimed at refining the way in which we regulate toxics.


Selected Presentations

Are PCBs legacy POPs?

Lisa Melymuk, Susan Csiszar, Marco Belmont, Miriam Diamond, Department of Geography, Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto

Paul Helm, Ontario Ministry of Environment,

John Clarke, Environment Canada

Most countries banned the production and/or importation of PCBs in the 1970s.  Regulations promulgated by Environment Canada in 1977 called for containment, but not removal or destruction of in-use PCBs.  Toronto , Canada , with a population of 2.5 million, currently has ~340 in-use sites and 149 storage sites for PCBs.  An additional 76 sites had PCBs removed within the past 5 years.  This amounts to a present stock of ~770,000 L of PCB contaminated fluid in Toronto .  In addition, the city contains a stock of PCBs in building sealants, paints, toners and materials in which PCBs were used as plasticizers.  A GIS analysis of the data shows that the in-use stock of PCBs is geographically centred in the downtown financial district where the technosphere is most highly concentrated. 

We estimated emissions of PCBs from the downtown core of the City of Toronto using the Multimedia Urban Model (MUM-Fate).  MUM-Fate is a 7 compartment, fugacity-based multimedia model adapted to consider cities by inclusion of films on impervious surfaces.  The model was used “in reverse” to back-calculate a range of emissions by setting the air concentration to measured values.  Emissions range from ~50-1500 mg/capita/year or 0.5-11 μg/m2/year, which exceed MUM-estimated emissions of PBDEs from the city.

Development of a Multimedia Urban Model to Study the Fate of PBDEs in Three Cities with Different Characteristics.

Belmont MA1, Diamond ML1, Melymuk LE1, Clarke JP1, Harrad SJ2, Van-Metre PC3, Heitmuller FT3, and M Rao3.

1Department of Geography, University of Toronto , 100 St. George St., Toronto , Ontario , Canada , M5S 3G3. 2Division of Environmental Health and Risk Management, Public Health Building, School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, U.K. 3US Geological Survey, 8027 Exchange Drive, Austin, TX, USA 78754-4733

Cities are sources of PCBs and PBDEs, hence understanding their fate in cities is critical for pollution control planning. The Multimedia Urban Model (MUM-06) was used to evaluate the behaviour of PCBs and PBDEs in three cities with very different characteristics: Toronto , Canada ; Birmingham , U.K. and Austin , USA .

MUM-06 is a steady-state, non-equilibrium, level-III fugacity multimedia model which has proved its applicability to study the fate of PCBs and PBDEs in the environment. It considers seven compartments: water, soil, sediment, lower (0-50 m) and upper (50-500 m) air layers, vegetation and surface film. The model was parametrized for each city considering their physical and metereological characteristics. The % of land cover (soil, water and impervious surface) were calculated from land-use maps using ArcGIS software. Seasonal temperature, wind and rain data were obtained from the literature. Physicochemical data for PBDE congeners were taken from the literature. The advective input by air was estimated using wind data and gas-phase concentrations of PBDE congeners measured upwind of the modelled areas. Emissions of PBDEs for Toronto and Birmingham were estimated using measured concentrations of PBDEs in air. WHAT WERE THE EMISSIONS FOR THE CITIES??? An emission of 1 mol/h of PBDEs where used to compare the behaviour of these chemicals in the cities. When comparing the three cities, concentrations in each compartment did not differ significantly. However, the mass of chemicals differed amongst the cities according to land coverage., The film on impervious surfaces is an important mediator of chemical fate.  

Keywords: PBDE, PCB, urban models, multimedia models

Levels of selected persistent organic pollutants in the sediments of urban rivers  in the Greater Toronto Area

Robson, M1, Melymuk, L1,  Lapierre, D1, Helm P, 2 and Diamond M1

1Department of Geography, University of Toronto , Toronto , Ontario , Canada , M5S 3G3. 2 Ontario Ministry of the Environment, 125 Resources Road , Toronto , Ontario , Canada M9P 3V6 .

It is now widely acknowledged that large urban areas such as cities act as a considerable source of many pollutants to the wider environment.

One of the key ways in which many of these pollutants migrate away from these urban areas is via their input to and association with the sediments present in urban rivers and streams. Therefore an accurate knowledge of the levels of these pollutants in sediments is a key tool for understanding their long term environmental fate.

To investigate this area, sediment samples were collected from ten locations in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) with a wide variety of land-uses ranging from fully urban to undeveloped areas.

These samples were then analyzed for a range of persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and organochlorine pesticides (OCPs). As expected, concentrations of PCBs and PBDEs followed trends in population density. Concentrations of PAH were related to population density and vehicular traffic, and concentrations of OC pesticides were spatially variable.

Keywords: Urban, Rivers, POPs, Sediments


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