I found much more data though it does not break down the the contents of particulate matter. From readings though I think it is safe to say that we have excess iron.
Feel rather silly about not researching EPA (Enviro Protection AGency) air pollution stats before now but our government is so lax on letting business pollute that I would not think there would anything useful.
Looks like the EPA has done much work for us already! See this very handy tool that compares air quality among counties and states. The web site is worth exploring for more data as well.
http://www.epa.gov/aircompare/
I didn't mean to suggest you or any of us should go in and gather findings by county for the entire US. I think this database is useful because we can get a breakdown of metals present in the particulate matter for everywhere and if we wanted to go beyond the map, we could design our own smaller study to see of it supports the other research, we have an easily searchable database where people can supply us with their rankings. I think the fact that it is searchable gives us some flexibility over looking at stats. Plus it gives us a narrowly defined air space; county wide stats need refinement. It gives us an air snapshot of a specific setting where we live and sometimes work; many people here do not live in counties in which they work. Are there any differences in health between people who live and work in NYC vs. work in NYC and live in a more rural area of Connecticut? Not sure what else we can do with it, but you never know.
The harder part is correlating this to PD beyond the initial map. How did they collect data? Is the raw data even available? At the very least, we could target a few cluster areas from the PD map and compare air quality between clean air and polluted locales. Hoping we can find some other interesting connections too.
Any other ideas on how we can make this data and that epidemiology map work for us? I am not great at statistics and am a broader picture sort of thinker, but I will gladly help.
Best,
Laura