Ultrafine particles and black carbon personal exposures in asthmatic and non-asthmatic children at school age

Traffic‐related air pollution (TRAP) exposure during childhood is associated with asthma; however, the contribution of the different TRAP pollutants in each microenvironment (home, school, transportation, others) in asthmatic and non‐asthmatic children is unknown. Daily (24‐h) personal black carbon (BC), ultrafine particle (UFP), and alveolar lung‐deposited surface area (LDSA) individual exposure measurements were obtained from 100 children (29 past and 21 current asthmatics, 50 non‐asthmatics) aged 9±0.7 years from the INMA‐Sabadell cohort (Catalonia, Spain). Time spent in each microenvironment was derived by the geolocation provided by the smartphone and a new spatiotemporal map‐matching algorithm. Asthmatics and non‐asthmatics spent the same amount of time at home (60% and 61%, respectively), at school (20% and 23%), on transportation (8% and 7%), and in other microenvironments (7% and 5%). The highest concentrations of all TRAPs were attributed to transportation. No differences in TRAP concentrations were found overall or by type of microenvironment between asthmatics and non‐asthmatics, nor when considering past and current asthmatics, separately. In conclusion, asthmatic and non‐asthmatic children had a similar time‐activity pattern and similar average exposures to BC, UFP, and LDSA concentrations. This suggests that interventions should be tailored to general population, rather than to subgroups defined by disease.