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Can respirator face masks in a developing country reduce exposure to ambient particulate matter?

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology volume 30, pages 606–617 (2020)Cite this article

Abstract

Respirator face masks (RFMs) as a personal-level intervention is increasingly being utilized to reduce ambient particulate matter (PM) exposure, globally. We tested the effectiveness of 50 commercially available ones in reducing the exposure of ambient particle number concentrations (PNC), PM10, PM2.5, and PM1 (PM ≤ 10, 2.5, and 1 μm in diameter, respectively) in a traffic-affected urban site in Tehran. To examine the efficiency of RFMs, we applied a specific experimental setup including vacuum pumps, dummy heads, connecting tubes, glass chambers, and GRIMM Aerosol Spectrometer to measure all metrics after dummy heads. The average effectiveness of RFMs was in the range of 0.7–83.5%, 3.5–68.1%, 0.8–46.1%, and 0.4–32.2% in reducing ambient PNC, PM10, PM2.5, and PM1, respectively. Considering all metrics, the highest effectiveness was observed always for Biomask, followed by 3 M 9332, due to their well-designed physical characteristics (e.g., adjustable nose clip for any face/nose shape, and size, soft inner material in the nose panel to provide a secure seal against leakage, adjustable or elasticated straps/ear loops to better adjust on any face). Biomask reduced ambient PM10 with a mean value of 94.6 μg m−3 (minimum–maximum: 51.7–100.3 μg m−3), whereas it filtered on average just 29.0 μg m−3 (25.7–43.5 μg m−3) of ambient PM2.5 and 18.2 μg m−3 (14.7–21.8 μg m−3) of PM1. A fuzzy analytical hierarchy process to find the most important design-related factors of RFMs affecting their effectiveness, which showed the exhalation valve and its diaphragm (20.4%), nose clip (19.7%), and cheek flaps (18.6%) are ranked as the main design-related variables. The fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution indicated that Biomask and 3M 9332 had scores of 1 and 0.97, the highest scores compared with other RFMs. This study provides crucial evidence-based results to elucidate the effectiveness and design-related factors of RFMs in real-environmental circumstances.

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Acknowledgements

This study was financially supported by the Iran National Science Foundation (INSF) (grant number: 97011909). The authors are also grateful to Institute for Environmental Research (IER), Tehran Heart Center (THC), and the Exceptional Talents Development Center at Tehran University of Medical Sciences. It should be noted that the use of any brand names in the current study in no way endorses the use of its RFM and other products. This article is the first part of a randomized crossover trial entitled “Evaluating performance of face masks in reducing ambient particulate matter exposure and their wearing on acute cardiovascular effects” with registration number “IRCT20181214041961N1”, in Tehran megacity and its results will be used in the next article. We sincerely acknowledge Sadegh Niazi, PhD candidate at Queensland University of Technology, for his assistance in the revision of our manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Health Engineering, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Sasan Faridi, Ramin Nabizadeh Nodehi, Masud Yunesian, Shahrokh Nazmara, Mohammad Sadegh Hassanvand & Kazem Naddafi

  2. Center for Air Pollution Research (CAPR), Institute for Environmental Research (IER), Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Sasan Faridi, Ramin Nabizadeh Nodehi, Mohammad Sadegh Hassanvand & Kazem Naddafi

  3. Tehran Heart Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Saeed Sadeghian & Masih Tajdini

  4. Research Center for Health Sciences, Institute of Health, Department of Environmental Health, School of Health, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran

    Mohammad Hoseini

  5. Center for Research Methodology and Data Analysis (CRMDA), Institute for Environmental Research (IER), Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Masud Yunesian

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Contributions

SF, MSH, and KN provided the idea for this work and designed the method. SF, MSH, and SHN performed the experiments. SF and RNN contributed to the data analysis. SF prepared all figures and tables, and wrote the main manuscript. SS, MH, MT, MY, and MSH revised the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Mohammad Sadegh Hassanvand or Kazem Naddafi.

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Faridi, S., Nodehi, R.N., Sadeghian, S. et al. Can respirator face masks in a developing country reduce exposure to ambient particulate matter?. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 30, 606–617 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41370-020-0222-6

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