Health and air quality: Directions for policy-relevant research

The NEPAM International Colloquia series is a program of five annual meetings involving scientists, regulators, industry representatives, and other stakeholder groups to improve the linkage between emerging scientific evidence on the population health impacts of exposure to particulate matter and clean air policy decisions. Health and Air Quality 2001, the first meeting in the colloquium series, focused on the findings of prospective cohort studies of particulate air pollution and mortality and implications for risk management. A further objective of the colloquium was to identify research directions to reduce information gaps and uncertainties faced by policy makers. This article discusses priority themes for future research to generate evidence in support of policy decisions to improve air quality and population health. These research themes include development of population health indicators to characterize, the public health burden of air pollution; individual exposure and outcome studies to the currently available database on the association between air pollution and adverse health effects; identification of sensitive subpopulations; techniques to assess the independent effects of individual pollutants on population health; comparative risk assessment; methods for characterization and communication of uncertainty in risk estimates; effectiveness of policy interventions to guide allocation of limited population health protection resources; improved predictions of the benefits of interventions through appropriate economic analyses: targeted interventions; and approaches for effective stakeholder engagement in risk management policy decisions. Future meetings in the NERAM Colloquium series will provide a forum for discussion of the current state of knowledge and policy implications of findings associated with these key research themes.