Assessing the inhalation cancer risk of particulate matter bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) for the elderly in a retirement community of a mega city in North China.
Assessment of the health risks resulting from exposure to ambient polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) is limited by the lack of environmental exposure data among different subpopulations. To assess the exposure cancer risk of particulate carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon pollution for the elderly, this study conducted a personal exposure measurement campaign for particulate PAHs in a community of Tianjin, a city in northern China. Personal exposure samples were collected from the elderly in non-heating (August-September, 2009) and heating periods (November-December, 2009), and 12 PAHs individuals were analyzed for risk estimation. Questionnaire and time-activity log were also recorded for each person. The probabilistic risk assessment model was integrated with Toxic Equivalent Factors (TEFs). Considering that the estimation of the applied dose for a given air pollutant is dependent on the inhalation rate, the inhalation rate from both EPA exposure factor book was applied to calculate the carcinogenic risk in this study. Monte Carlo simulation was used as a probabilistic risk assessment model, and risk simulation results indicated that the inhalation-ILCR values for both male and female subjects followed a lognormal distribution with a mean of 4.81 × 10-6 and 4.57 × 10-6, respectively. Furthermore, the 95 % probability lung cancer risks were greater than the USEPA acceptable level of 10-6 for both men and women through the inhalation route, revealing that exposure to PAHs posed an unacceptable potential cancer risk for the elderly in this study. As a result, some measures should be taken to reduce PAHs pollution and the exposure level to decrease the cancer risk for the general population, especially for the elderly.
['Han|Bin|B|', 'Liu|Yating|Y|', 'You|Yan|Y|', 'Xu|Jia|J|', 'Zhou|Jian|J|', 'Zhang|Jiefeng|J|', 'Niu|Can|C|', 'Zhang|Nan|N|', 'He|Fei|F|', 'Ding|Xiao|X|', 'Bai|Zhipeng|Z|']
D000368:Aged D000393:Air Pollutants D002681:China D002947:Cities D005260:Female D064368:Healthy Volunteers D016852:Housing for the Elderly D006801:Humans D019570:Inhalation Exposure D008175:Lung Neoplasms D008297:Male D009010:Monte Carlo Method D052638:Particulate Matter D011084:Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons D011336:Probability D018570:Risk Assessment D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
PAHs Elderly Personal exposure Tianjin Risk assessment Inhalation rate Monte Carlo simulation