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Ambient, indoor and personal exposure relationships of volatile organic compounds in Mexico City Metropolitan Area

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology volume 14, pages S118–S132 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

Air pollution standards and control strategies are based on ambient measurements. For many outdoor air pollutants, individuals are closer to their sources (especially traffic) and there are important indoor sources influencing the relationship between ambient and personal exposures. This paper examines the relationship between volatile organic compounds (VOCs) measured at central site monitoring stations and personal exposures in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area. Over a 1-year period, personal exposures to 34 VOCs were measured for 90 volunteers from 30 families living close to one of five central monitoring stations. Simultaneous 24-h indoor, outdoor and central site measurements were also taken. Dual packed thermal desorption tubes and C18 DNPH-coated cartridges were used for sampling VOCs and these were analyzed by GC/MS and HPLC, respectively. A factor analysis of the personal exposure data aided in grouping compounds by the most likely source type: vehicular (BTEX, styrene and 1,3-butadiene), secondary formed or photochemical (most aldehydes), building materials and consumer products (formaldehyde and benzaldehyde), cleaning solvents (tetrachloroethene and 1,1,1-trichloroethane), volatilization from water (chloroform and trichloroethene) and deodorizers (1,4-dichlorobenzene). Mean ambient, indoor and personal concentrations were 7/7/14 μg/m3 for benzene, 1/3/3 for 1,3-butadiene, 6/20/20 for formaldehyde and 3/9/50 for 1,4-dichlorobenzene. Geometric mean (GM) ambient concentrations of trichloroethene and carbon tetrachloride were similar to GM personal exposures. While outdoor and indoor home GM concentrations for most vehicular related compounds (benzene, MTBE, xylenes and styrene) were comparable, the GM personal exposures were twice as high. Indoor concentrations of 1,3-butadiene, 1,1,1-trichloroethane, tetrachloroethane, chloroform, formaldehyde, valeraldehyde, propionaldehyde and n-butyraldehyde were comparable to personal exposures. For certain compounds, such as chloroform, aldehydes, toluene, 1,3-butadiene and 1,4-dichlorobenzene, GM personal exposures were more than two times greater than GM ambient measurements.

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Acknowledgements

This study was partially supported by CONSERVA (Consejo Nacional para la Valoración Ambiental) 1997 and 1998 and Fundación Mexicana para la Salud. The Akira Yamaguchi endowment funds provided stipend support for Paulina Serrano's doctoral research. We are grateful to study participants. We thank the field and data entry team: Eduardo González-Saravia, Julio Lara-Nolasco and Laura Medina. We also thank Larisa Althsul, Antonio Chemor, Brian Labreque, Yurika Nishioka and Robert Weker for their contribution on the laboratory analysis. We thank the RAMA authorities for facilitating our access to the city-maintained monitoring stations and the installation of our monitors on the roof of their monitoring sites.

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  1. Department of Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Paulina I Serrano-Trespalacios & John D Spengler

  2. Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Louise Ryan

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Serrano-Trespalacios, P., Ryan, L. & Spengler, J. Ambient, indoor and personal exposure relationships of volatile organic compounds in Mexico City Metropolitan Area. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 14 (Suppl 1), S118–S132 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.jea.7500366

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