Human Exposure Assessment for Airborne Pollutants

Human Exposure Assessment for Airborne Pollutants
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 338
Release: 1991-02-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309042844

Most people in the United States spend far more time indoors than outdoors. Yet, many air pollution regulations and risk assessments focus on outdoor air. These often overlook contact with harmful contaminants that may be at their most dangerous concentrations indoors. A new book from the National Research Council explores the need for strategies to address indoor and outdoor exposures and examines the methods and tools available for finding out where and when significant exposures occur. The volume includes: A conceptual framework and common terminology that investigators from different disciplines can use to make more accurate assessments of human exposure to airborne contaminants. An update of important developments in assessing exposure to airborne contaminants: ambient air sampling and physical chemical measurements, biological markers, questionnaires, time-activity diaries, and modeling. A series of examples of how exposure assessments have been applied-properly and improperly-to public health issues and how the committee's suggested framework can be brought into practice. This volume will provide important insights to improve risk assessment, risk management, pollution control, and regulatory programs.

Human Exposure Assessment

Human Exposure Assessment
Author: United States. Indoor Air Quality/Total Human Exposure Committee
Publisher:
Total Pages: 44
Release: 1995
Genre: Environmental health
ISBN:

Risk Assessment of Chemicals: An Introduction

Risk Assessment of Chemicals: An Introduction
Author: C.J. van Leeuwen
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 706
Release: 2007-09-18
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1402061013

At last – a second edition of this hugely important text that reflects the progress and experience gained in the last decade and aims at providing background and training material for a new generation of risk assessors. The authors offer an introduction to risk assessment of chemicals as well as basic background information on sources, emissions, distribution and fate processes for the estimation of exposure of plant and animal species in the environment and humans exposed via the environment, consumer products, and at the workplace. The coverage describes the basic principles and methods of risk assessment within their legislative frameworks (EU, USA, Japan and Canada).

Review of the Department of Defense Enhanced Particulate Matter Surveillance Program Report

Review of the Department of Defense Enhanced Particulate Matter Surveillance Program Report
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 106
Release: 2010-08-23
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309154138

Soldiers deployed during the 1991 Persian Gulf War were exposed to high concentrations of particulate matter (PM) and other airborne pollutants. Their exposures were largely the result of daily windblown dust, dust storms, and smoke from oil fires. On returning from deployment, many veterans complained of persistent respiratory symptoms. With the renewed activity in the Middle East over the last few years, deployed military personnel are again exposed to dust storms and daily windblown dust in addition to other types of PM, such as diesel exhaust and particles from open-pit burning. On the basis of the high concentrations observed and concerns about the potential health effects, DOD designed and implemented a study to characterize and quantify the PM in the ambient environment at 15 sites in the Middle East. The endeavor is known as the DOD Enhanced Particulate Matter Surveillance Program (EPMSP). The U.S. Army asked the National Research Council to review the EPMSP report. In response, the present evaluation considers the potential acute and chronic health implications on the basis of information presented in the report. It also considers epidemiologic and health-surveillance data collected by the USACHPPM, to assess potential health implications for deployed personnel, and recommends methods for reducing or characterizing health risks.

Controlled Human Inhalation-Exposure Studies at EPA

Controlled Human Inhalation-Exposure Studies at EPA
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 159
Release: 2017-05-10
Genre: Science
ISBN: 030945249X

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a mission and regulatory responsibility to protect human health and the environment. EPA's pursuit of that goal includes a variety of research activities involving human subjects, such as epidemiologic studies and surveys. Those research activities also involve studies of individuals who volunteer to be exposed to air pollutants intentionally in controlled laboratory settings so that measurements can be made of transient and reversible biomarker or physiologic responses to those exposures that can indicate pathways of toxicity and mechanisms of air-pollution responses. The results of those controlled human inhalation exposure (CHIE) studies, also referred to as human clinical studies or human challenge studies, are used to inform policy decisions and help establish or revise standards to protect public health and improve air quality. Controlled Human Inhalation-Exposure Studies at EPA addresses scientific issues and provides guidance on the conduct of CHIE studies. This report assesses the utility of CHIE studies to inform and reduce uncertainties in setting air-pollution standards to protect public health and assess whether continuation of such studies is warranted. It also evaluates the potential health risks to test subjects who participated in recent studies of air pollutants at EPA's clinical research facility.

Outdoor Air Pollution

Outdoor Air Pollution
Author: IARC Working Group on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans
Publisher: IARC Monographs on the Evaluat
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9789283201472

"This publication represents the views and expert opinions of an IARC Working Group on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risk to Humans, which met in Lyon, 8-15 October 2013."

Assessment of Ambient and Occupational Exposures to Air Contaminants from Wildland Fire Smoke

Assessment of Ambient and Occupational Exposures to Air Contaminants from Wildland Fire Smoke
Author: Kathleen McGuire Navarro
Publisher:
Total Pages: 98
Release: 2016
Genre:
ISBN:

This dissertation combines traditional methods of exposure assessment with new approaches to evaluate exposures in community and occupational settings to air contaminants commonly emitted from wildland fires and found in the ambient environment. Wildland fires emit large amounts of air pollutants known to cause adverse health effects. Past exposure assessments of wildland fires have measured levels of fine and respirable particulate matter (PM2.5-PM4), acrolein, benzene, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, crystalline silica, total particulates, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). I evaluated exposures to air pollutants associated with wildland fires, specifically PM2.5 and PAHs at different exposure receptor levels - in communities near a wildland fire, occupational exposures of wildland firefighters, and biomarkers of exposure in the US population. First, I evaluated air quality impacts of PM2.5 from smoke from a mega wildland fire on receptor areas in California and Nevada. The 2013 Rim Fire was the third largest wildland fire in California history and burned 257,314 acres in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. This project employed two approaches to examine the air quality impacts, (1) an evaluation of PM2.5 concentration data collected by temporary and permanent air monitoring sites and (2) an estimation of intake fraction (iF) of PM2.5 from smoke. The Rim Fire impacted locations in the central Sierra nearest to the fire and extended to northern Sierra Nevada Mountains of California and Nevada monitoring sites. Daily 24-hr average PM2.5 concentrations measured at 22 air monitors had an average concentration of 20 [mu]g/m3 and ranged from 0 to 450 [mu]g/m3. iF for PM2.5 from smoke during the active fire period was 7.4 per million, which is slightly higher to representative iF for PM2.5 in rural areas and much lower than for urban areas. This study is a unique application of intake fraction to examine emissions-to-exposure for wildfires and emphasizes that air quality cannot only be localized to communities near large fires but can extend long distances and impact larger urban areas. Next, I characterized exposures of wildland firefighters during wildland fire and prescribed fires to PAHs, explore associations between exposure and firefighting job tasks, and examine off-duty and community PAH and PM2.5 concentrations. Wildland firefighters working to control wildland fires work long shifts and are exposed to high levels of wood smoke with no respiratory protection. PAHs were measured on 21 wildland firefighters (N=28) while suppressing two wildland fires and 4 wildland firefighters conducting prescribed burns in California. Personal air samples were collected using actively sampled XAD-coated quartz fiber filters. Filters in cassette cases were attached to the back of each wildland firefighter's backpack. Community-level PAH air samples were collected for the first 12 days of a wildland fire and were collocated with a PM2.5 sampler. Samples were analyzed for 17 individual PAHs through extraction with dichloromethane and analyzed on a gas chromatograph with a mass selective detector. I detected measurable concentrations of 17 PAHs in personal samples on firefighters at prescribed and wildland fires and in area samples at a community nearby a wildland fire. Naphthalene, retene, and phenanthrene were consistently the highest measured PAHs at all three sampling scenarios. PAH concentrations were higher at wildland fires compared to prescribed fires and were highest for firefighters during job tasks that involve the most direct contact with smoke near an actively burning wildland fire. Although concentrations do not exceed current occupational exposure limits, wildland firefighters are exposed to PAHs not only on the fire line at wildland fires, but also while working prescribed burns and while off-duty. It is important to characterize exposures from wildland fires to better understand any potential long-term health effects. Lastly, I evaluated predictors of urinary PAH concentrations in 2001-2006 NHANES participants from a variety of sources including demographic information, food intake, housing characteristics, and modeled outdoor air pollutant exposures. Biomonitoring data provides a direct way to link human exposure to environmental contaminants. However, these data do not reveal how various exposure routes or media contribute to the body burden of a specific chemical. NHANES participants were linked to their census tract-level daily PM2.5 exposure estimate, outdoor temperature, and annual air toxics concentrations. Multivariate linear regression models were developed using the Deletion/Substitution/ Addition algorithm to predict urinary PAH levels using NHANES questionnaire data for model selection in all and non-smoking adult NHANES participants. Exposure parameters were then added to each model. Model fit was assessed by comparing the R2 for each model tested. Exposure to PM2.5 and air toxics emissions were not associated with levels of urinary PAH metabolites. In the analysis current smoking status was the strongest predictor of PAH biomarker concentration and was able to explain 10% - 47% of the variability of PAH biomarker concentrations. The DSA selected models did not improve prediction in the "all adults" analysis. They were able to explain 10% - 51% of the variability of PAH biomarker concentrations in all adults. Among non-smokers, the DSA selected variables only explained 2% - 5% of the variability in biomarker concentrations. Further studies of routes of exposure of PAHs should be completed to understand how PAHs in the environment are contributing to the body burden of PAH. This study demonstrated how a rich dataset of biomarkers with individual information on demographics, food intake, and air pollution exposures can be used to examine the contribution of each route of exposure on the body burden. With the predicted increase of fire season in the western United States due to climate change resulting in more acres burned and smoke produced, it is important to quantify the air quality impacts from wildfires to develop effective strategies to protect public and wildland firefighter health. These methods outlined in this dissertation can be used to better estimate short-term and long-term health risks, so that public and occupational health practitioners, air quality regulators, and natural resource managers can develop mitigation strategies to reduce exposure to wildland fire smoke.

Exposure Information in Environmental Health Research

Exposure Information in Environmental Health Research
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2007
Genre:
ISBN:

Understanding and quantifying outdoor and indoor sources of human exposure are essential but often not adequately addressed in health-effects studies for air pollution. Air pollution epidemiology, risk assessment, health tracking and accountability assessments are examples of health-effects studies that require but often lack adequate exposure information. Recent advances in exposure modeling along with better information on time-activity and exposure factors data provide us with unique opportunities to improve the assignment of exposures for both future and ongoing studies linking air pollution to health impacts. In September 2006, scientists from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) along with scientists from the academic community and state health departments convened a symposium on air pollution exposure and health in order to identify, evaluate, and improve current approaches for linking air pollution exposures to disease. This manuscript presents the key issues, challenges and recommendations identified by the exposure working group, who used cases studies of particulate matter, ozone, and toxic air pollutant exposure to evaluate health-effects for air pollution. One of the over-arching lessons of this workshop is that obtaining better exposure information for these different health-effects studies requires both goal-setting for what is needed and mapping out the transition pathway from current capabilities to meeting these goals. Meeting our long-term goals requires definition of incremental steps that provide useful information for the interim and move us toward our long-term goals. Another over-arching theme among the three different pollutants and the different health study approaches is the need for integration among alternate exposure assessment approaches. For example, different groups may advocate exposure indicators, biomonitoring, mapping methods (GIS), modeling, environmental media monitoring, and/or personal exposure modeling. However, emerging research reveals that the greatest progress comes from integration among two or more of these efforts.