Human Health Risk Assessment associated with contaminants in the finest fraction of sidewalk dust collected in proximity to trafficked roads

Abstract

The objective of the study was to determine concentration of metals in sidewalk dust collected in close vicinity to heavily congested roads in Poland in order to assess non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic health risk for both children and adults associated with the ingestion, dermal contact and inhalation of sidewalk dust. Results revealed that sidewalk dust from Warsaw, Krakow, Wroclaw and Opole is heavily contaminated especially with Sb, Se, Cd, Cu, Zn, Pb, considered as indicators of traffic emission. Hazardous indices determined for different exposure pathways indicated that the greatest health risk for both children and adults is associated with the ingestion of sidewalk dust. Carcinogenic risk associated with the ingestion of sidewalk dust by children, calculated for As, Cd, Ni and Pb exceeded safe level of 1 × 10−4 in all cities except for Warsaw. Non-carcinogenic risk of ingestion for children was two orders of magnitude higher than dermal risk and four to five orders of magnitude higher than risk of inhalation. Non-carcinogenic risk associated with the ingestion of sidewalk dust by adults is comparable with dermal contact risk and five orders of magnitude higher when inhalation risk.

Pollution Caused by Potentially Toxic Elements Present in Road Dust from Industrial Areas in Korea

“…Therefore, resuspended dust in industrial areas is higher than that in urban areas owing to the accumulation of large amounts of RD and the increase in traffic-induced turbulence by large trucks. The fine particles present in RD are inhaled by humans and may have harmful effects on the respiratory system [75,76].…”

Potentially Toxic Elements (PTEs) Composition and Human Health Risk Assessment of PM10 on the Roadways of Industrial Complexes in South Korea

“…The non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks of PTEs in PM10 of RDS were calculated according to a health risk assessment model derived and advanced by the USEPA [82,83]. Ingestion, dermal contact and inhalation are the three major pathways of RDS exposure in humans [84][85][86]. According to the exposure factor handbook [63], the average daily dose (ADD, mg/kg/day) of PTEs due to PM10 in RDS exposure through ingestion (ADDing), dermal contact (ADDderm) and inhalation (ADDinh) can be estimated using the following equations, respectively:…”

“…ABS is the dermal absorption factor (10 −3 ); BW is body weight (70 kg for adults); AT is the average lifetime (in days, ED×365); and PEF is the particle emission factor (1.316 × 10 9 m 3 ). The parameters necessary for the assessment of ADD were reported by Adamiec and Jarosz-Krzemińska; USEPA; Zhou et al; and Jose and Srimuruganandam [84,85,87,88].…”

“…The potential non-carcinogenic risk of specific PTEs was assessed using the hazard quotient (HQ) according to the following equation [84]. HQ represents the ratio of ADD to the specific reference dose (RfD).…”

Spatial and Socio-Classification of Traffic Pollutant Emissions and Associated Mortality Rates in High-Density Hong Kong via Improved Data Analytic Approaches

“…For the purpose of obtaining a more realistic distribution of district-wise traffic emissions, for the modelling of spatial pollution profiles, which might open new windows for conducting health exposure assessment especially during peak hours, this study attempts to develop a systematic geo-processing framework via data analytic means, which process available hourly traffic NO x and PM 2.5 emission records of all roads in Hong Kong. To the best of our knowledge, such fine-scale spatial investigations and potential health assessments (with social assumptions imposed) have only been conducted in other countries, like Canada, Poland and the United States [ 35 , 36 , 37 ], but not in highly dense and populated cities. Therefore, the main objectives, desired results and findings of this study are: (1) To establish an improved and comprehensive framework that combines geo-processing techniques, working norms, peak hours for human mobility, and building morphologies of Hong Kong to retrieve more realistic district-wise and street-level traffic NO x and PM 2.5 emissions from eight key road transport types; (2) to obtain diurnal variabilities of traffic NO x and PM 2.5 emissions from each transport type, with the aim of incorporating peak hours into the framework in a more scientific manner; (3) to look for the potential linkages between district-wise traffic emissions and health attributes in different case studies, with respective assumptions outlined in the framework; (4) to identify outlying districts in a highly dense city, then suggest feasible measures for reducing traffic-related health risks and maintaining environmental sustainability and living quality, based on prescribed statistical assumptions.…”