Satellite-Based Personal UV Dose Estimation

Atmosphere

David Vernez¹  Claudine Backes¹  ToddC. Harris²  Laurent Vuilleumier²  Athanasios Nenes³ 

[1] Center for public health and primary care medicine (Unisanté), University of Lausanne, 1011 Lausanne, Switzerland;Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology MeteoSwiss, 1530 Payerne, Switzerland;Laboratory of Atmospheric Processes and their Impacts, School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Swiss Institute of Technology, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland;

关键词: solar UV;    radiation;    exposure assessment;    satellite data;    dosimetry;   

DOI  :  10.3390/atmos12020268

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Epidemiology and public health research relating to solar ultraviolet (UV) exposure usually relies on dosimetry to measure UV doses received by individuals. However, measurement errors affect each dosimetry measurement by unknown amounts, complicating the analysis of such measurements and their relationship to the underlying population exposure and the associated health outcomes. This paper presents a new approach to estimate UV doses without the use of dosimeters. By combining new satellite-derived UV data to account for environmental factors and simulation-based exposure ratio (ER) modelling to account for individual factors, we are able to estimate doses for specific exposure periods. This is a significant step forward for alternative dosimetry techniques which have previously been limited to annual dose estimation. We compare our dose estimates with dosimeter measurements from skiers and builders in Switzerland. The dosimetry measurements are expected to be slightly below the true doses due to a variety of dosimeter-related measurement errors, mostly explaining why our estimates are greater than or equal to the corresponding dosimetry measurements. Our approach holds much promise as a low-cost way to either complement or substitute traditional dosimetry. It can be applied in a research context, but is also fundamentally well-suited to be used as the basis for a dose-estimating mobile app that does not require an external device.

【 授权许可】

Unknown