Concentrations, spatial distribution, and human health risk assessment of asbestos fibers in ambient air of Tehran, Iran

Kermani, M. and Jonidi Jafari, A. and Gholami, M. and Taghizadeh, F. and Arfaeinia, H. and Abdolsalami, Y. and Shahsavani, A. (2021) Concentrations, spatial distribution, and human health risk assessment of asbestos fibers in ambient air of Tehran, Iran. Arabian Journal of Geosciences, 15 (18). ISSN 18667511

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Abstract

The aim of current research was to determine airborne asbestos fiber concentrations in the ambient air of Tehran, and to investigate their spatial distribution, seasonal variation, and human health risk assessment. For this, the sampling of the study was carried out during August 2017 and June 2018, and totally, 64 samples were taken from 8 stations along the different areas of Tehran. The concentrations of airborne asbestos fibers were determined by phase contrast microscope (PCM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analyses. Spatial mapping was conducted using the inverse distance weighting (IDW) technique. The health risk assessment was done based on the detected levels of airborne asbestosis fibers. The mean concentrations of the airborne asbestos fiber were 1.9 × 10−3 f/ml and 595 × 10−3 f/ml based on PCM and SEM analyses, respectively. One of the effective factors on ambient level of asbestos fibers is meteorological parameters, where the maximum and minimum concentrations of asbestos fibers are related to cold and warm seasons, respectively. These differences could be due to the presence of inversions phenomenon in cold seasons in Tehran. It was observed that the excess lifetime cancer risk (ELCR) calculated for all the sampling areas are between 5.26 × 10−5 and 5.37 × 10−4. Based on the EPA-suggested standards (10−4–10−6), these values are categorized rather to moderate levels. The obtained data indicated no threat of asbestos fibers to Tehran’s citizens’ health.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Air pollution . Asbestos fibers . Risk assessment . Tehran . Responsible Editor:Amjad Kallel
Subjects:	R Medicine > Environmental Health
Divisions:	Faculty of Public Health
Depositing User:	خدیجه شبانکاره
Date Deposited:	27 Dec 2021 09:56
Last Modified:	27 Dec 2021 09:56
URI:	http://eprints.bpums.ac.ir/id/eprint/9465

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