Indoor Exposure and Health Risk of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) in Public Facilities, Korea

Abstract

In the study, pollution levels of indoor polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in public facilities (vapor phase or particulate phase) were evaluated, and a health risk assessment (HRA) was carried out based on exposure scenarios. Public facilities in Korea covered by the law, including underground subway stations, funeral halls, child care facilities, internet cafes (PC-rooms), and exhibition facilities (6 locations for each type of facility, for a total of 48 locations), were investigated for indoor assessment. For the HRA, individual excess cancer risk (ECR) was estimated by applying main toxic equivalency factor (TEF) values suggested in previous studies. Among the eight public facilities, internet cafes showed the highest average PM 2.5 concentration at 110.0 μg/m 3 (range: 83.5-138.5 μg/m 3

Indoor Exposure and Health Risk of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) via Public Facilities PM2.5, Korea (II)

“…24-h samples were simultaneously collected, respectively. The method of sampling indoor and outdoor air, pretreatment and analysis is based on the US EPA Compendium Method TO-13A (U.S. EPA, 1999) and the prior study (Kim et al, 2013;Wang et al, 2013) performed the PAHs evaluation through the sampling with the diameter ⁄2.5 μm (PM 2.5 ).…”

“…The risk assessment in the study estimates the excess cancer risk (ECR) by applying various toxic equivalency factor (TEF) like the prior study of Kim et al (2013). Therefore, the study first performs the Surrogate method of the PAHs, the assessment by applying the relative potency factors (RPF) method calculated by the concentration and the carcinogenic potency as the benzo(a)pyrene indicator and second, the assessment by applying the EPA (1993) TEF for 7 of 24 carcinogenic PAHs.…”

“…As assessed by Kim et al (2013), the study finally calculates the risk degree with (1) the method which expresses the relative cancer potency for individual PAH for the Benzo(a)pyrene (Yang et al, 2007) and (2) the method which applies the toxic equivalent quotient (TEQ) of the PAHs mixture using the TEFs of individual PAH (Chen and Liao, 2006).…”

“…Second, the relative potency factor approach method is an approach to the components and estimates the initial carcinogenic level by adding degrees from each material from the PAHs compounds including the benzo(a)pyrene. The recent provisional guidance for assessing PHA risks of the EPA implements this approach, previously evaluated by Kim et al (2013) and the study contains the result as an annual study.…”

“…For the particle PAHs, the detection frequency for 2-3 rings shows low and the elements with 6 rings show high frequency. As a result, it is investigated that the most important PAHs are the naphthalene, acenaphthene and phenanthrene from the study of Kim et al (2013) and this annual study. The health risk assessment demonstrates that each facility shows the level of 10 --6 -10 --4 .…”