Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript prepared by Munshed et al., entitled: “Advancing Human Health Risk Assessment through a Stochastic Methodology for Mobile Source Air Toxics”, does not adhere to the standard structure, composition, and presentation typical for a research article. Its format and style more resemble to a thesis or book chapter. Several paragraphs and explanations lack appropriate references, raising concerns about the credibility of these sections and suggesting they may represent authors’ general opinions rather than scientifically substantiated facts.

The manuscript lacks a clear and concise statement of its aim. Instead, the research objectives and contributions are described in an overly extensive manner, which is unusual for a research article.

The introduction is disproportionately long, resembling a stand-alone review paper or a book chapter rather than serving its intended purpose in a research manuscript.

The Material and Methods section is missing clear and concise structure. The current methodology is overly detailed, with repeated information from earlier sections of the manuscript. Furthermore, the manuscript does not include focused Results and Discussion sections (or a combined section under that title). Instead, the Analysis of Results section is presented in an extensively broad manner, with lengthy descriptions and explanations. This approach makes it challenging to distinguish the findings of the present study from the existing knowledge.

 

In its current form, the manuscript does not meet the fundamental standards of a research article and more closely resembles a book chapter. To improve its quality, the manuscript should be rewritten in a more concise and focused manner. It should clearly and explicitly define the study’s aim and address it in a structured and precise way.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

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Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper aims to provide a stochastic model for cumulative and multi-pathway exposures to MSATs, which is important and urging for the needs to fully understand and evaluate human risks faced multiple airborne pollutants. This work is well presented and well organized, with clear explanation to the proposed mathematical methods. The proposed Monte Carlo method is a valuable tool for future human risk assessments of multiple chemicals and multiple pathways, especially considering sensitive subpopulations like children. 

 

Below are some suggestions to improve the manuscript: 

• Provide abbreviations when they first showed up, e.g. line 208 the authors mentioned MOVES for the first time, and did not give “(MOVES)”, but mentioned later at line 245; also at line 376, mentioned MSAT abbreviation for the first time while it appeared at earlier sessions. Please correct there where applicable, and keep using the abbreviations afterwards 

• Table 4 provides exposure parameters, but there’s no references provided. For example, US EPA assumes adults drink 2 liters of water every day, and the authors chose 1.4 L instead, why choose the value, please clarify

• The objective of this work is to evaluate aggregated risks, and Equation 5 means both ingestion and inhalation are considered, but no dermal exposure, and thus it might be clearer to define the exposure pathways in the objectives in the Intro

• Also, how do the authors include chemical reactions in the atmospheric modeling, e.g. formaldehyde oxidation

• In the AERMOD and WRF modeling, what are the airborne pollutants’ output data? Are they 24 hr avg or several day rolling basis avg? 

• And information on the cancer unit risk and slope factors for each carcinogen would be nice

• For the sensitivity analysis, why choose the 20% as the variables change range, please justify

• For tables 6 & 7, in the Intro, the authors mentioned 6 carcinogens, but here only data for 3 carcinogens are given, why only show part of the carcinogens?

• Personally, I think tables 6 & 7, 8, 9 & 10 can be merged. 

• In terms of interpreting the risk from the stochastic model, the p95 risk calculated is lower than the traditional deterministic point estimate, which means there is no underestimate mentioned at line 784, is there potential explanation to it?

 

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a good paper enlaring our perception of environmental risks mailnly due to automotiv exhasts. The paper is well oprganised, plenty of references and easy to be reproduced on other contexts. For that the paper merit publication.

However, I believe that an important exposition path has been missed, It concerns with exposition in indoor environments such as houses, schools, etc. The Authors address this point in the future activities. However, I believe that a paragraph in the introduction may convince readers about the importance to include such exposition.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf