Objectives

Traffic-Related Air Pollution (TRAP) Exposures from Border Crossings:

Assessing Affected Populations in El Paso, Texas Rohit Jaikumar1, Tara Ramani1, Amber Trueblood1, Inyang Uwak1,2, Suriya Vallamsundar1, Natalie Johnson2, Josias Zietsman1

1Center for Advancing Research in Transportation Emissions, Energy and Health, Texas A&M Transportation Institute, 2Department of Environmental & Occupational Health, Texas A&M University School of Public Health

Traffic Density Values by Census Block Group

Introduction Results

• The city of El Paso shares a border with Mexico and is

home to some of the busiest border crossings in the U.S.

• In 2015, El Paso was found to be in non-attainment of the

National Ambient Air Quality Standards for 𝑃𝑀10.

• Traffic-related air pollution (TRAP) from the border

crossings may play a significant role.

• Populations living in proximity to the border crossings may

be disproportionately exposed to TRAP.

Methods

Legend

"b% EPBorderCrossing

ADT_CUR

25022 - 58237

58238 - 101809

101810 - 177953

Hot Spot Analysis showing affected neighborhoods

Results• Significant findings revealed that the higher the level of

education (OR=0.6, p-value= 0.003) and median income

(OR=0.9, p-value= 0.001), the lower the odds of being in a

hotspot.

Conclusions• A systematic GIS-based approach revealed worse air

quality affected El Paso populations with lower

socioeconomic indicators.

• Findings can inform efforts to address TRAP exposure,

health impacts, and environmental justice issues in border

regions.

Future Work• These preliminary findings will further inform our site

selection for the second phase of the study, which will

involve conducting personal air monitoring to identify and

characterize TRAP exposures within the hotspots.

High Volume Traffic Roadways

Assessment Process

Population risk (Odds Ratio)

Hot spot areas

Traffic DensityBlock Groups Buffers VMT

High Volume Roadways/Truck Routes

El Paso Border Crossing Traffic

• To characterize exposures of people affected by TRAP in

the El Paso border crossing region in two phases.

• Phase 1 – Examine affected environment and populations

• Phase 2 – Monitor personal exposures to traffic emissions

• Identified high traffic volume roadways and truck

routes.

• Used GIS to overlay demographic data with traffic

density data to identify “hotspot” areas most affected

by border crossing emissions.

• Employed logistic regression to identify the probability

of living in a “hotspot” area and the demographics of

that population.