Indoor-outdoor relationships of airborne nanoparticles, BC and VOCs at rural and urban preschools.

Indoor-outdoor relationships of airborne nanoparticles, BC and VOCs at rural and urban preschools. Environ Pollut. 2021 Jan 01;268(Pt A):115751 Authors: Portela NB, Teixeira EC, Agudelo-Castañeda DM, Civeira MDS, Silva LFO, Vigo A, Kumar P Abstract Health risks caused by exposure to black carbon (BC) and nanoparticles (NP) are well studied, although no standard currently exists for them worldwide. Exposure to children may lead to serious health effects due to their increased vulnerability and longer time spend inside the classrooms, making it important to assess the factors that affect air quality in preschools. Thus, this work aims to evaluate indoor-outdoor (I/O) relationships of NPs in the 10-420 nm range, BC and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at rural and urban preschools (aged 3-5 years) between May 2016 and July 2017. Factorial analysis was applied to identify the possible emission sources. Prior communalities were estimated by the squared multiple correlations with all other variables. We used the varimax rotation method and the criterion for factor selection was the number of eigenvalues greater than one. Results indicate that BC and NP were 4- and 3.2-times higher in urban outdoor caused by traffic emissions, respectively. Highest concentrations occurred during rush hours and during the pickup time of children. In urban school, BC was directly related to accumulation mode (N49-205), while in the rural area, BC was relat...
Source: Rural Remote Health - Category: Rural Health Authors: Tags: Environ Pollut Source Type: research