Informing Policy in the Face of an Air Pollution Crisis.

Kevin Lane is the principal investigator of a $1.2 million project to monitor and model ultrafine particles in neighborhoods around Boston Logan Airport.

Air pollution is the fifth leading cause of premature death in the world, contributing to more deaths each year than alcohol, malnutrition, road injuries, and malaria.

Most of the research on the subject— and resulting environmental regulation— has been on particulate matter about 2.5 micrometers wide, known as PM 2.5, says Kevin Lane (SPH’14).

“However, other air pollutants known as ‘ultrafine particulate matter’ have been studied far less, and could potentially be more toxic,” he notes. “Given their size, they have been shown to pass through the lungs and disperse throughout the body.”

An alum who returned to SPH in 2017 as an assistant professor of environmental health, Lane works on, and teaches, new methods to model and understand air pollution exposures to ultimately inform action from India to Greater Boston. He’s also principal investigator of a two-year, $1.2 million project to monitor and model ultrafine particles in neighborhoods around Boston Logan Airport.

A collaboration between SPH and Tufts University that’s funded by the Federal Aviation Administration, the project uses an electric vehicle and stationary monitors in Boston, Chelsea, and Winthrop to better understand how airport ground emissions, aircraft in flight, and road traffic contribute to community-level air pollution.

In India, Lane and colleagues (including Gregory Wellenius, head of the new Program on Climate and Health, page 58) are working to create a high-resolution air pollution exposure model for the entire country, to help inform policy in the face of an air pollution crisis.

“Whether we are studying air pollution in Boston or India, being able to provide communities and officials with information on exposure contributions from sources like aviation, cars, and smokestacks is critical to inform potential solutions through mitigation strategies and policy,” Lane says.