Children exposure and dose assessment to chemical compounds in particulate matter in Lisbon
Title: Children exposure and dose assessment to chemical compounds in particulate matter in Lisbon
Summary: Faria T., Martins V., Canha N., Diapouli E., Manousakas M.I., Eleftheriadis K., Almeida S.M.
Abstract:
Introduction | Exposure to air pollutants such as particulate matter (PM) is associated with increased mortality and morbidity. PM is a complex mixture of microscopic particles with chemical compounds and their effects have been observed even at low levels of exposure, with no evidence of a safe level for which no adverse health effects occur (Jakovljevi et al., 2018). Since children spend the majority of their time indoors, individual exposure to PM is dominated by indoor air pollution. However, the data available for assessing the risk of indoor air pollution are scarce and often insufficient. This work was developed in the framework of the LIFE Index-Air project (www.lifeindexair.net) and aims to quantify the children daily exposure and dose to PM chemical compounds.
Methods | A questionnaire on time activity patterns was applied to 1251 children living in Lisbon. PM was sampled in 40 houses, 5 schools and respective outdoor sites during 5 days each. Leckel MVS6 samplers were used to collect PM2.5 and PM2.5-10 that were characterized by X-Ray Fluorescence for the measurement of major and trace elements and by the Thermo-Optical Transmittance method for the determination of the organic and elemental carbon. The daily exposure for each child was assessed by integrating the results from the time-activity pattern with the concentrations measured in the different microenvironments (MEs). The dose was calculated through the product between the exposure and a dosimetry factor as presented in Equation 1: (Equation 1)
Where Cij is the mean concentration of the pollutant, tij is the time spent by the individual in the microenvironment, m is the total number of MEs and IR is the inhalation rate (Buonanno et al., 2011).
Conclusions | Children, during the week, spent an average 89% of their time indoors – 55% at home, 27% in classrooms, 3.5% in vehicles and 2.7% practicing indoor physical activities, indicating that the risk assessment should focus on indoor MEs. The daily dose depended on the ME frequented by the children and activities performed. Home and school were the MEs where the children spent more time and together contributed to more than 70% to the daily inhaled dose of each PM chemical compound (except for Ba and EC in PM2.5 and Ba and Cl in PM10 where the outdoor contribution was more relevant). While most hours were spent daily in homes, the schools displayed the highest contributions for the exposure and dose of the mineral elements (Al, Ca, Si, Sr, and Ti) that can enter in classrooms through the windows or be released from children’s shoes especially after playing outside.
This work was supported by LIFE Index-Air project (LIFE15 ENV/PT/000674). Authors gratefully acknowledge the FCT support through the UID/Multi/04349/2013 project and the PhD grant SFRH/BD/129149/2017. This work reflects only the authors’ view and EASME is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.
Buonanno, G., Giovincoa, G., Morawska, L., Stabilea, L. (2011). Tracheobronchial and alveolar dose of submicrometer particles for different population age groups in Italy. Atmos Environ., 45,6216–6224.
Jakovljevi, I., Gordana, P., Vladimira, V., Mirjana, Č., Vesna, T., Jagoda, D. J. (2018). Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in PM10, PM 2.5 and PM1 particle fractions in an urban area. Air Qual. Atmos. Health, 11, 843–854.
Type of publication: Oral Abstract of EAC2019 (Gothenburg, Sweden, 25 – 30 August)
How to cite: Faria T., Martins V., Canha N., Diapouli E., Manousakas M.I., Eleftheriadis K., Almeida S.M. (2019) Children exposure and dose assessment to chemical compounds in particulate matter in Lisbon. European Aerosol Conference – EAC 2019, Gothenburg, Sweden, 25 – 30 August.
How to download: here