Personal Carbon Monoxide Exposure in Helsinki, Finland

Personal exposure concentrations of carbon monoxide (CO) were measured for the adult urban population of Helsinki, Finland, as part of the multi-centre European EXPOLIS study.The arithmetic mean of the 48h average personal CO exposure concentration was 1.3 mg m-3 for participants not exposed to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and 1.6 mg m-3 for those exposedm to ETS at any time and in any microenvironment. The maximum 8 and 1 h exposure values were 2.0 and 2.6 mg m-3, and 4.3 and 5.7 mg m-3, respectively. As tobacco smoke is one of the major sources of CO, therefore the personal mean exposures of ETS participants were higher than the non-ETS participamts for all averaging times. Th long-and short-term personal exposure were higher in winter than in summer for all participants. In order to analyse in more detail the correlation between the time-activity patterns and the exposure levels, cluster analysis was performed using 24h personal exposure profiles of 1h moving averages. The results showed clearly that the major source of CO for non-ETS exposed participants are traffic emissions. The majority of the diurnal exposure profiles showed two notable exposure peaks corresponding to the morning and evening traffic rush hours. The time spent in street traffic was the most relevant factor for describing the short-term personal exposures. The more time was spent commuting by cas the higher were the exposures. The long-term exposure levels were linked both to the time spent commuting and home location. People living in low-traffic suburban areas and working in downtown spent more time communtin and ended up experiencing similar log-term exposure levels than people who lived in heavy-traffic downtown areas, but spent little time commuting. For ETS exposed participants the personal exposure profiles were dominated by both tobacco smoke and traffic emissions.

SCOTTO DI MARCO Greta;  KEPHALOPOULOS Stylianos;  RUUSKANEN Juhani;  JANTUNEN Matti; 

2005-12-21

ELSEVIER SCI LTD

JRC31591

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC31591,   

10.1016/j.atmosenv.2004.07.039,