Pathwaysairborne

Pathwaysairborne is a multidisciplinary framework for studying airborne transmission of infectious agents in indoor and outdoor environments. It aims to identify how pathogen-laden aerosols and droplets travel through air, how they are affected by ventilation, humidity, temperature, and airflow patterns, and how human behavior and building geometry shape exposure risk.

It emerged from collaborative work among epidemiologists, aerosol scientists, mechanical engineers, and data scientists in the early 2020s. The term is used to describe a systems approach rather than a single model, and it is often associated with open datasets, simulation tools, and scenario libraries that support risk assessment and mitigation planning.

Core components include dispersion and transport models, emission and dose data, ventilation and filtration parameters, occupancy and activity profiles, and risk metrics. The framework supports integration of experimental measurements, tracer gas studies, computational fluid dynamics, and probabilistic methods to estimate exposure distributions across settings such as classrooms, offices, hospitals, and transit spaces.

Applications range from guiding ventilation upgrades and personal protective equipment strategies to informing outbreak investigations and public health guidelines. Pathwaysairborne concepts are used to compare mitigation options, quantify uncertainty, and communicate risk to decision-makers and the public.

Limitations include variability in emission rates, imperfect knowledge of source locations, and the difficulty of capturing complex airflow in real-time. Ongoing work focuses on improving parameter estimation, expanding scenario libraries, and validating models against field measurements.

See also: airborne transmission, ventilation design, aerosol science, exposure modeling.