The BREATHE study integrates the BEAM CORE multi-agent modelling tool with state-of-the-art emissions, air quality, and health assessment models to create a framework that performs a full chain assessment of transportation systems and the impacts of traffic-related air pollution on population health under various policy scenarios. Through this framework, researchers and societal partners will be able to answer critical “what-if” questions about potential health impacts of alternative policy and technology implementation of transportation scenarios and their distributional effects across heterogeneous communities.
To develop this framework, the team will 1) model and estimate selected current and future emissions from different transportation scenarios at the road link-level for on-road sources and at point-level for electricity generation units, 2) model and assess long-term mortality and morbidity outcomes from exposure to ambient concentration of PM2.5, NO2, and BC as a result of emissions, and 3) assess the differences in traffic related air pollution associated health outcomes between subpopulations of interest to provide insight into how travel patterns under various scenarios, combined with personal travel modes and associated exposure levels, can lead to different health outcomes by demographic groups in different communities. Then, by applying the advanced capabilities of BEAM CORE, the team will explore a comprehensive set of scenarios, developed with input from local policy and community partners, that influence urban transportation systems and their impact on health outcomes
Main Findings
Adult current asthma ranges from 5.9% to 14.1% across 1,759 census tracts. Using AERMOD sensitivity analyses at 12 sites, emission release height (1 m, 3.5 m, 5.5 m, 9 m) explains 75.7% of variance in ambient concentration on average (SD 9.25%), while emission rate (0, freeway, city) explains 12.8% (SD 4.22%), and urban rural classification explains 1.59% (SD 2.18%).
Publications
Poliziani et al. Traffic, air quality, and health impacts resulting from pricing incentives and commuter programs using a regional-scale agent-based transportation system model. ISEE 2025 conference abstract.
Laarabi et al. BREATHE: Bridging REalms for Assessment of Traffic-related Health Effects. 2025 HEI Annual Conference abstract.
Laarabi et al. A high-resolution, large-scale agent-based transport model for health outcomes evaluation from policy changes. ISEE 2024 conference abstract.