BLACK SMOKE AS A SURROGATE FOR PM(10) IN HEALTH STUDIES

There is a rapidly growing interest in health implications of airborne fine particles. The focus of attention is on particulate matter less than 10 mu m aerodynamic diameter (PM(10)). In the U.K. there are few PM(10) measurements and this is potentially hampering health effect st udies. There is however a wide body of black smoke data using the Brit ish Standard smoke stain method. Black smoke may indeed be a better in dicator of health impacts. It is therefore timely to examine the relat ionship between black smoke and PM(10). This has been done using recen t monitoring results for Bristol, a moderate sized U.K, city. Daily av erage black smoke (averaged over six urban background sites) is shown to be a reasonable predictor of daily average PM(10) and of daily peak 1 h PM(10). However, different relationships apply to winter and summ er periods showing that these methods are measuring different componen ts of fine airborne particles.