ABSTRACT
Background: air Quality Health Index [AQHI] is a scale, which was designed in Canada to help people to understand how the air quality affects their health. It measures the relationship between the air quality and health on a scale from 1 to l0+
Aim: the aim of this study was to assess traffic AQHI on one street in Alexandria, Egypt at different seasonal conditions
Methods: this was a time-series study that was conducted during the period andom January 1 to December 31, 2016 at Ibrahim Sherif Street. It was accomplished by three-hour air sampling of respirable particulates [PMlO], nitrogen dioxide [NO2], sulfur dioxide [SO2] and ground-level ozone [O3], during the morning rush hours. A total of 156 samples for each pollutant covered all seasonal variations and activities. After laboratory analysis, the added health risks [%AR] and AQHI were calculated using the Hong Kong equation
Results: the uppermost median value of %AR was during April r72.9 [23.4]] and the minimum was during January r32.2 [10.0]]. The traffic AQHIs in the study setting were of the serious category 10+ in almost all sampling days. The maximum %AR was during spring r70.0 [19.7]], and the minimum was during winter [40.6 [1 9.0]]
Conclusion: from the results of the present study, we can conclude that; the highest %AR was during April, and the minimum was during January. The traffic AQHIs in the study setting were of the serious category 10+ in almost all sampling days. The most dominating pollutant affecting the %AR and AQHI was the PM10