Air Quality Data Available in Arcus

Given recent events surrounding the forest fires in Canada, have you ever wondered what impact air quality can have on children's health? Forest fires emit a range of pollutants, including particulate matter, gases, and volatile organic compounds, which can significantly degrade air quality and pose health risks to nearby communities. Arcus has downloaded and pre-processed daily and yearly air quality monitoring data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Air Quality Index (AQI) for 1980-2022. This data can be merged to an Arcus Lab environment and queried against patient information to determine health outcomes related to concentrations of air pollutants over time. This dataset provides monitored concentration values of particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5), PM10, O₃, SO₂, CO and NO₂.

Arcus has also added data from the Atmospheric Composition Analysis Group (ACAG) at Washington University in St. Louis. Unlike the AQI that uses nearby monitors to report air pollution, the ACAG collects PM2.5 concentration estimates from NASA's satellites. They devote particular attention to emissions and other processes affecting tropospheric ozone and aerosols. ACAG's modeled exposures are considered as the gold standard in epidemiological studies where personal air monitoring is unavailable.

If you have questions or are interested in more information about the GIS data available to Arcus Labs, please contact Arcus GIS expert Michael Campagna.