Background: Air pollution is a major global environmental risk factor. Since people spend most of their time indoors, the sole measure of outdoor concentrations is not sufficient to assess total exposure to air pollution. Therefore, the arising interest by the international community to indoor-outdoor relationships has led to the development of various techniques for the study of emission and exchange parameters among ambient and non-ambient pollutants. However, a standardised method is still lacking due to the complex release and dispersion of pollutants and the site conditions among studies. Methods: This review attempts to fill this gap to some extent by focusing on the analysis of the variety of site-specific approaches for the assessment of particulate matter in work and life environments. Results: First, the main analogies and differences between indoor and outdoor particles emerging from several studies are briefly described. Commonly-used indicators, sampling methods, and other approaches are compared. Second, recommendations for further studies based on recent results in order to improve the assessment and management of those issues are provided. Conclusions: This review is a step towards a comprehensive understanding of indoor and outdoor exposures which may stimulate the development of innovative tools for further epidemiological and multidisciplinary research.

The #CHEARIATIRA citizen science campaign was developed in February 2019 in Torino (western part of the Po Valley megacity region). The aim of the campaign was public engagement with measuring NO₂ concentrations in an urban area that often exceeds air quality standards. NO₂ diffusion tubes were employed by citizens under our supervision. In this paper, we present the main outcomes of a combined approach between the #CHEARIATIRA campaign and the urban dispersion model SIRANE. The results were validated against the available public Air Quality Monitoring Stations (AQMS). The citizens’ passive samplers and the modelled data show a good response in central districts both during the campaign interval and by annual projection. Traffic hotspots and sensitive receptors (schools, hospital) have high concentrations of NO₂. Most of the study area (83% of the tubes) is subject to an increased risk of premature death according to epidemiological literature.

To promote research studies on air pollution and climate change, the mobile laboratory cc-TrAIRer (Climate Change—TRailer for AIR and Environmental Research) was designed and built. It consists of a trailer which affords particles, gas, meteorological and noise measurements. Thanks to its structure and its versatility, it can easily conduct field campaigns in remote areas. The literature review presented in this paper shows the main characteristics of the existing mobile laboratories. The cc-TrAIRer was built by evaluating technical aspects, instrumentations and auxiliary systems that emerged from previous studies in the literature. Some of the studies conducted in heterogeneous topography areas, such as the Po Valley and the Alps, using instruments that were chosen to be located on the mobile laboratory are here reported. The preliminary results highlight the future applications of the trailer and the importance of high temporal resolution data acquisition for the characterization of pollution phenomena. The potential applications of the cc-TrAIRer concern different fields, such as complex terrain, emergency situations, worksite and local source impacts and temporal and spatial distributions of atmospheric compounds. The integrated use of gas and particle analysers, a weather station and environment monitoring systems in a single easily transportable vehicle will contribute to research studies on global aspects of climate change.

The Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) literature shows that noise could represent a risk factor for professional orchestral musicians. The continuative exposition to elevated noise levels and the particular nature of the activity make necessary an “atypical” OH&S approach, which was identified to be necessarily organizational. In this study, a parametric-based method for orchestral exposure assessment and management was developed. The goal was to achieve a predictive tool to involve safety in the decision making of concert season program. After setting the parameters, the project's hypothesis was defined and then validated through a yearly-scale monitoring on an important European symphonic orchestra. Moreover, workers’ exposure was assessed from the parametric study by a wide measurement campaign. A general validation of the method was obtained by the verification of the main parameters’ (repertoire, headcount, and disposition) significant influence on the sound pressure levels produced by the orchestra. Exposure levels comparable to the trends in literature for symphonic orchestras were observed, with criticalities among brass musicians, which was the only group exceeding the upper exposure action values. This research has emphasized that the exposure condition of musicians can be critical and requires the implementation of improvement plans. The study has shown that the predictive analysis can be performed on parameters describing the concert's emissive characteristics. The future development of research currently under study will focus on the concert's pieces and the use of parameters as indicators of the exposure context.