Nevertheless, there was general agreement about the need to educate people that air quality is part of their well-being. The example of cancer was raised to suggest alternative strategies. It was also noted that educational efforts should attempt to condition people to the value of sacrifice. The issue of exposures vs. ambient pollution concentrations was further discussed. Participants agreed with the presenters that we should be looking at how to reduce human exposures over the long term, not just reducing source emissions or ambient concentrations.
Risk assessment is the link needed to target reducing human exposures.
The topic of assessing exposures raised the issue of confounding factors, which generated a few questions. Indoor ozone exposures are dramatically lower than outdoors, and this can confound effects. This is why exposure assessment is important. There is a need to disentangle various health problems, especially considering that most schools and homes in Mexico City are not heated and people blame any symptoms they have on ozone. Though particles are routinely monitored, and contingency measures triggered at certain levels, this approach doesn't account for varying PM composition in different areas of the city.