Pollen and Fungal Spores Evaluation in Relation to Occupants and Microclimate in Indoor Workplaces

Abstract

Indoor air quality depends on many internal or external factors mutually interacting in a dynamic and complex system, which also includes indoor workplaces, where subjects are exposed to many pollutants, including biocontaminants such as pollen and fungal spores. In this context, the occupants interact actively with their environment through actions, modifying indoor environmental conditions to achieve their own thermal comfort. Actions such as opening/closing doors and windows and turning on/off air conditioning could have effects on workers’ health. The present study explored the contribution of human occupants to pollen and fungal spore levels in indoor workplaces, combining aerobiological, microclimate, and worker monitoring during summer and winter campaigns. We evaluated the overall time spent by the workers in the office, the workers’ actions regarding non-working days and working days, and non-working hours and working hours, during two campaigns of pollen and fungal spore monitoring. Our results showed that the biocontaminant values depend on many mutually interacting factors; hence, the role of all of the factors involved should be investigated. In this regard, aerobiological monitoring should be a valid tool for the management of occupational allergies, providing additional information to improve occupational health protection strategies.

Intercomparison of Indoor and Outdoor Pollen Concentrations in Rural and Suburban Research Workplaces

“…The air is captured by a vacuum pump to assure a constant flow of 10 L/min corresponding to the human mean breath rate, through an orifice of known dimension (2 × 14 mm) oriented continually against the wind due to a directional wing and positioned at a height of at least 1 m. The air flow is directed onto a surface consisting of a transparent plastic Melinex ® tape properly equipped, coated with a 2% silicon solution as trapping surface. The trapping surface moves at a speed of 2 mm/h on a cylindrical rotating drum that makes a complete round in a week [19,73,74].…”

“…According to the Italian standard methodology the minimum number of horizontal sweeps must correspond to an area close to 20% of the impacted surface and the sweeps spaced 2 mm from each other, as well as from the edge of the sampling surface [73]. The pollen counts are expressed as number of particles/m 3 of air [19,73,75], pollen concentrations are provided with a 30-min time resolution and, in the analysis, 2-h and 6-h averages are calculated and considered.…”

“…Aerobiological particles responsible for occupational allergic diseases (e.g., asthma and rhinitis) show a variation in their allergenicity, concentrations, dispersal and transport, in relation to several factors such as meteorological conditions and in particular air temperature, relative humidity, rainfall, wind speed, climate change and other factors including atmospheric pollutants, characteristics of the vegetation site, seasonality, and buildings and their occupants [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27].…”

“…Pollen is a critical source of exposure in living and work environments, indoor and outdoor, urban and non-urban occupational settings, involving numerous categories of workers, e.g., farmers, gardeners, foresters, office workers [15][16][17][18][19][61][62][63][64][65].…”

“…Many papers have shown that indoor workplaces are also directly influenced by the outdoor environment. Pollen grains and, as a rule, air pollutants, can enter a building by infiltration, through open windows and doors and unfiltered ventilation systems, and can be transported on the feet and bodies of occupants [19,[66][67][68].…”