Characterizing relationships between personal exposures to VOCs and socioeconomic,demographic, behavioral variables |
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| Authors: | Sheng-Wei Wang Mohammed A Majeed Pei-Ling Chu Hui-Chih Lin |
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| Institution: | 1. University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ), Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, NJ, USA;2. Department of Natural Resources & Environmental Control (DNREC), State of Delaware, USA;3. Novo Nordisk Inc., Princeton, NJ, USA;4. Department of Marketing & Distribution Management, The Overseas Chinese Institute of Technology, Taiwan;1. Department of Environmental Immunology, UFZ–Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany;2. Core Facility Studies, UFZ–Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany;4. Department of Metabolomics, UFZ–Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany;3. Ivana Tuerbachova Laboratory for Epigenetics, Epiontis GmbH, Berlin, Germany;5. Department of Biotechnology, Chemistry and Environmental Engineering, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark;6. Institute for Clinical Immunology, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany;7. Children''s Hospital, Municipal Hospital “St Georg,” Academic Teaching Hospital of the University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany;1. Chaire sur la pollution de l?air, les changements climatiques et la santé, Département de santé environnementale et de santé au travail, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada;2. Institut National de Santé Publique du Québec, Montréal, Canada;3. Department of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, Canada;4. Division of Clinical Epidemiology, McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, Canada;5. Health Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada;6. Centre for Ecosystem Management, School of Natural Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, Australia;7. Direction de santé publique de l?Agence de la santé et des services sociaux de Montréal, Canada;8. Ouranos Consortium, Montreal, Canada;1. Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, Red Cross War Memorial Children''s Hospital, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa;2. MRC Unit on Child & Adolescent Health, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa;3. Children''s Health and Environment Program, Child Health Research Centre, The University of Queensland, South Brisbane, QLD, Australia;4. Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, Tygerberg Children''s Hospital, Stellenbosch University, Tygerberg, South Africa;1. Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, M6075 SPH II, 1415 Washington Heights, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2029, USA |
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| Abstract: | Socioeconomic and demographic factors have been found to significantly affect time-activity patterns in population cohorts that can subsequently influence personal exposures to air pollutants. This study investigates relationships between personal exposures to eight VOCs (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, o-xylene, m-,p-xylene, chloroform, 1,4-dichlorobenzene, and tetrachloroethene) and socioeconomic, demographic, time-activity pattern factors using data collected from the 1999–2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) VOC study. Socio-demographic factors (such as race/ethnicity and family income) were generally found to significantly influence personal exposures to the three chlorinated compounds. This was mainly due to the associations paired by race/ethnicity and urban residence, race/ethnicity and use of air freshener in car, family income and use of dry-cleaner, which can in turn affect exposures to chloroform, 1,4-dichlorobenzene, and tetrachloroethene, respectively. For BTEX, the traffic-related compounds, housing characteristics (leaving home windows open and having an attached garage) and personal activities related to the uses of fuels or solvent-related products played more significant roles in influencing exposures. Significant differences in BTEX exposures were also commonly found in relation to gender, due to associated significant differences in time spent at work/school and outdoors. The coupling of Classification and Regression Tree (CART) and Bootstrap Aggregating (Bagging) techniques were used as effective tools for characterizing robust sets of significant VOC exposure factors presented above, which conventional statistical approaches could not accomplish. Identification of these significant VOC exposure factors can be used to generate hypotheses for future investigations about possible significant VOC exposure sources and pathways in the general U.S. population. |
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