Verifying locations of sources of historical environmental releases of dioxin-like compounds in the U.S.: implications for exposure assessment and epidemiologic inference.

ABSTRACT: Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxin and dibenzofuran (PCDD/F) emissions from industrial sources contaminate the surrounding environment. Proximity-based exposure surrogates assume accuracy in the location of PCDD/F sources, but locations are not often verified. We manually reviewed locations (i.e., smokestack geo-coordinates) in a historical database of 4478 PCDD/F-emitting facilities in 2009 and 2016. Given potential changes in imagery and other resources over this period, we re-reviewed a random sample of 5% of facilities (n = 240) in 2016. Comparing the original and re-review of this sample, we evaluated agreement in verification (location confirmed or not) and distances between verified locations (verification error), overall and by facility type. Using the verified location from re-revie

SUBMITTER: Jones RR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6667317 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature