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Individual solar-UV doses of pupils and undergraduates in China

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology volume 16, pages 531–537 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

The solar-UV exposures of school pupils and medical undergraduates were studied over four seasons in Shenyang (latitude 41°11′–43°2′, longitude 122°25′–123°48′), Liaoning, PR China. Ultraviolet exposure was measured using personal ultraviolet radiation (UVR) sensor on sunny days along with simultaneous monitoring and recording of direct-ambient UVR dose (perpendicular UV dose) for comparison. We observed that the UV doses of pupils on weekdays were higher than those on weekends and that the UV doses of the pupils were significantly higher than those of the undergraduates during both weekdays and weekends. The percent of the mean individual daily UV dose to the environmental counterpart are 2.88% (Autumn), 7.76% (Winter), 3.77% (Spring) and 2.06% (Summer) for the pupils, and corresponding percent for the undergraduates are 0.88%, 0.32%, 0.67% and 0.81%. The means of minimum erythemal dose values with pupils for weekday (5 days), weekend (2 days) and week (7 days) through the whole year are 0.302 (0.275∼0.328), 0.215 (0.170∼0.261) and 0.278 (0.255∼0.301), respectively. The corresponding means with undergraduates are 0.097 (0.081∼0.113), 0.091 (0.070∼0.112) and 0.095 (0.082∼0.108), respectively. Although the season is a major factor influencing the personal direct-ambient percent, it is emphasized that the impact of the lifestyle cannot be ignored.

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Abbreviations

MED:

minimum erythemal dose

NBS:

National Bureau of Standards

UV-A:

UV radiation of wavelengths 315–400 nm

UV-B:

UV radiation of wavelengths 280–315 nm

UVR:

ultraviolet radiation.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China 40275036. We are grateful for anonymous reviewers, as well as Professor Ge Wang and Deepak Bharkhada, for their important comments and editorial help.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Health, School of Public Health, China Medical University, Shenyang, China

    Yang Liu, Daojun Yu & Yang Wang

  2. National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba,, Japan

    Masaji Ono

  3. Shenyang Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shenyang, China

    Jiaming Yu

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  1. Yang Liu
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  2. Masaji Ono
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  4. Yang Wang
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Correspondence to Yang Liu.

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Liu, Y., Ono, M., Yu, D. et al. Individual solar-UV doses of pupils and undergraduates in China. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 16, 531–537 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.jes.7500492

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