Exposure Characteristics And Risk Assessment Of Volatile Organic Compounds In Household Environment

The indoor environment has an important impact on human health.With the improvement of living standards,the variety of indoor decoration and chemicals,the concentration of indoor volatile organic compounds(VOCs)pollution has increased.VOCs is considered to be one of the main factors affecting occupants’health.This study investigated the exposure characteristics and health risk of volatile organic pollutants in 78 pregnant women’s bedrooms in Tianjin.Subjective and objective methods were used to study the environment of house.The analysis was carried out with regard to indoor VOCs concentration level,pollution source,influencing factors and health hazards.The median value of total volatile organic compound(TVOC)concentration in the bedroom of the 78 pregnant women who participated in the project was 446.03μg/m~3,with an average of 526.85μg/m~3.And it was found that ventilation can effectively reduce the concentration of indoor volatile organic pollutants.The concentration of VOCs was affected by the indoor air temperature and humidity.Decoration materials such as laminated wood and wallpaper make large contribution to VOCs concentrations,meanwhile,the use of daily chemicals will also increase VOCs concentrations in the house.The Logistic regression model was adopted to investigate the associations between indoor VOCs and health effects,such as sick building syndrome(SBS)and odor perception.Higher concentrations of hexanal and acetone had significant assocaitions with higher perception of the general symptoms of SBS.Higher concentrations of decanal and octanal had significant assocaitions with higher perception of skin symptoms of SBS.People were significantly inclined to feel the pungent/snoring odor under the situation with higher concentrations of benzene,xylenes,butyl acetate and limonene.The method of US EPA health assessment was used to evaluate carcinogenic and nononcogenic risk in this study.It was found that the total carcinogenic risk had exceeded the limitation defined by the EPA and naphthalene make largest contribution to above carcinogenic risk assessment.The total non-carcinogenic quotient did not exceed the limitation under the situation of average exposure.However,potential risk was still existed when the value of total non-carcinogenic quotient exceeding the limitation under the worst exposure situation.