Establishing relevant ozone standards to protect vegetation and human health: exposure/dose-response considerations

For assessing the efficacy of a specific form of the National Ambient Air Quality Standard for O3, those exposure patterns that result in vegetation and human health effects must be identified. For vegetation, it has been found that the higher hourly average concentrations should be weighted more than the lower concentrations. Controlled human exposure work supports the suggestion that concentration may be more important than exposure duration and ventilation rates. It has been indicated in the literature that the current form of the federal O3 standard may not be appropriate for protecting vegetation and human health from O3 exposures. The proposed use of the cumulative index alone as a form of the standard may not provide sufficient protection to vegetation. An extended-period average index, such as a daily maximum 8-hour average concentration, may not be appropriate to protect human health because of the reduced ability to observe differences among hourly O3 concentrations exhibited within exposure regimes. For both vegetation and human health effects research, additional experimentation is required to identify differences in responses that occur when ambient-type exposure regimes are applied. Any standard promulgated to protect vegetation and human health from O3 exposures should consider combining cumulative exposure indices with other parameters so that those unique exposures that have the potential for eliciting an adverse effect can be adequately described.