Characteristics, Source Contributions, and Source-Specific Health Risks of PM2.5-Bound Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons for Senior Citizens during the Heating Season in Tianjin, China

Abstract

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) have carcinogenic impacts on human health. However, limited studies are available on the characteristics, sources, and source-specific health risks of PM2.5-bound PAHs based on personal exposure data, and comparisons of the contributions of indoor and outdoor sources are also lacking. We recruited 101 senior citizens in the winter of 2011 for personal PM2.5 sample collection. Fourteen PAHs were analyzed, potential sources were apportioned using positive matrix factorization (PMF), and inhalational carcinogenic risks of each source were estimated. Six emission sources were identified, including coal combustion, gasoline emission, diesel emission, biomass burning, cooking, and environmental tobacco smoking (ETS). The contribution to carcinogenic risk of each source occurred in the following sequence: biomass burning > diesel emission > gasoline emission > ETS > coal combustion > cooking. Moreover, the contributions of biomass burning, diesel emission, ETS, and indoor sources (sum of cooking and ETS) to PAH-induced carcinogenic risk were higher than those to the PAH mass concentration, suggesting severe carcinogenic risk per unit contribution. This study revealed the contribution of indoor and outdoor sources to mass concentration and carcinogenic risk of PM2.5-bound PAHs, which could act as a guide to mitigate the exposure level and risk of PM2.5-bound PAHs.

Personal Exposure to Source‐Specific Particulate Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons and Systemic Inflammation: A Cross‐Sectional Study of Urban‐Dwelling Older Adults in China

“…An urban expressway with dense traffic is located 400 m away from the study community. The basic information of the study city was described in our previous publication (N. Zhang et al., 2022 ). We asked the staff of the local community center to help recruit the participants.…”

“…For each participant, the collection of PM 2.5 personal exposure sample began at 8:00–9:00 in the morning of a given day and lasted for 24 hr during winter in 2011 (details are presented in our previous studies (Han et al., 2016 ; N. Zhang et al., 2022 )). Briefly, we collected PM 2.5 samples for personal exposure by requiring each participant to carry a backpack, in which we equipped two personal exposure monitors (PEM‐PM 2.5 ; BGI, Inc., Waltham, MA, USA).…”

“…Gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC‐MS, trace 2000 GC‐MS, Thermo Finnigan, Waltham, MA, USA) was used to analyze PAH samples, following previously described protocols (N. Zhang et al., 2022 ). The detailed information on the PAHs analysis is shown in Text S1, Tables S1, and S2 in Supporting Information S1 .…”

“…Source‐apportionment analysis for each participant was conducted using version 5.0 of the Environmental Protection Agency PMF model (Text S2 in Supporting Information S1 ). Source identification and contributions have been previously reported (N. Zhang et al., 2022 ), including two indoor sources (cooking fumes (CF) and environmental tobacco smoking (ETS)) and four outdoor sources (diesel vehicle emission (DV), coal combustion (CC), gasoline vehicle emission and biomass burning (BB)).…”

“…The contributions of each source for the participants, which were reported in our previous publication (N. Zhang et al., 2022 ), were separately accounted as independent variables in the linear regression models, while the inflammatory cytokines were dependent variables. All models were adjusted for confounders, including body mass index, sex, age, smoking status (active smoker, passive smoker, and non‐smoker), education (high school and below vs. college and above), relative humidity and outdoor temperature on the day of sample collection.…”