Grants and Fellowships | 2014

59 Doctoral Fellowships Understanding Policy Change Sequences in Vehicle and Industrial Air Pollution Policies in Israel The relationship between exposure to petroleum products and their negative health effects is well established in occupational studies. However, the question remains whether living near petroleum storage facilities represents a cancer risk. In this study, age standardized rates (ASRs) and recently developed Double Kernel Density (DKD) tools were used to estimate relative risks of lung and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) cancers attributed to residential proximity to the Kiryat Haim petroleum terminal. An innovative approach of exposure estimation using soil samples was also tested in Ashkelon. In contrast to the ASRs approach, the DKD approach was found to be a more sensitive tool, revealing that the relative density of both lung and NHL cancers declined in line with distances from the industrial zone, especially among the elderly. We conclude that living near petroleum storage sites may represent a significant cancer risk which cannot always be detected by traditional epidemiological approaches based on aggregated zonal estimates. Research publications (1) Zusman, M., Dubnov, J., Barchana, M., & Portnov, B.A. (2012). Residential proximity to petroleum storage tanks and associated cancer risks: Double kernel density approach vs. zonal estimates.  Science of the Total Environment, 441 , 265-276. (2) Zusman, M., Ben Asher, J., Kloog, I., & Portnov, B.A. (2013). Estimating multi-annual PM 2.5 air pollution levels using sVOC soil tests: Ashkelon South, Israel as a case study. Atmospheric Environment, 81 , 633-641. (3) Portnov, B.A., & Zusman, M. (2014). Spatial data analysis using kernel density tools. In J. Wang (Ed.), Encyclopedia of business analytics and optimization (pp. 2252-2264). Hershey, PA: Business Science Reference . doi:10.4018/978-1- 4666-5202-6.ch203   Fellow Marina Zusman University of Haifa Supervisors Boris A. Portnov, Jonathan Dubnov and Micha Barchana 2009-2012 Estimating Cancer Risk Attributed to Living in Proximity to Large Petroleum Storage Tanks The study deals with patterns of policy change in Israeli vehicle and industrial air pollution policies with the aim of mapping sequences of policy changes and understanding the factors and conditions affecting them. The study includes mapping policy changes in the first decade of the millennium, constructing a policy change timeline and analyzing policy change sequences. Mapping policy changes takes into account change magnitude and accumulation over time. Analysis of sequences takes into account the factors and conditions characterizing the policy areas which are consequential for change patterns such as resistance to change by stakeholders. Change patterns will also be compared to those in road safety policy which is generally characterized by relatively weak stakeholder resistance to change. Results from a three year timeline of policy changes (2002-2004) revealed the following: a significant phenomenon of accumulating changes in policy sequences; several central characteristics of policy sequences important for analysis; and a significant difference between the vehicle air pollution sequence and the industrial air pollution sequence. Fellow Ehud Segal The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Supervisor Eran Feitelson 2009-2012