Steel dust in the New York City subway system as a source of manganese, chromium, and iron exposures for transit workers
Steel dust in the New York City subway system as a source of manganese, chromium, and iron exposures for transit workers
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DOI：
10.1093/jurban/jti006
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发表时间：
2005-03-01
影响因子：
6.6
通讯作者：
Brandt-Rauf, P
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Chillrud, SN;Grass, D;Brandt-Rauf, P
1990年美国《清洁空气法》修正案反映了人们对低水平空气中金属暴露对一系列疾病的潜在影响的日益关注。在这里，我们总结的结果表明，纽约市(NYC)地铁系统为纽约市通勤者和地铁工人提供了一个重要的金属暴露微环境，并描述了一项正在进行的纽约市交通工人暴露于钢铁粉尘的初步研究。1999年对41名高中生进行的TEST(有毒暴露评估，哥伦比亚和哈佛大学的一项研究)的结果强烈表明，个人空气样本中铁、锰和铬的水平升高是由于暴露在纽约地铁的钢铁粉尘中。据观察，在纽约的地铁环境中，空气中与细颗粒物相关的这三种金属的浓度是家中、室内或室外环境中的100多倍。虽然目前在地铁系统的空气中观察到的水平对健康没有已知的影响，但正在进行的试点研究的主要目的是确定地铁空气中这些金属的水平是否会影响接触这些金属或相关代谢物的运输工人血液或尿液中这些金属或相关代谢物的浓度，因为他们的工作活动可能会比典型的通勤者暴露在更高的水平上。研究设计涉及招募40名过境工人，他们的预期接触钢铁粉尘的范围很大，收集个人空气中的细颗粒物样本，并收集每个被监测的过境工人的血液和尿液样本。
The United States Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 reflected increasing concern about potential effects of low-level airborne metal exposure on a wide array of illnesses. Here we summarize results demonstrating that the New York City (NYC) subway system provides an important microenvironment for metal exposures for NYC commuters and subway workers and also describe an ongoing pilot study of NYC transit workers' exposure to steel dust. Results from the TEACH (Toxic Exposure Assessment, a Columbia and Harvard) study in 1999 of 41 high-school students strongly suggest that elevated levels of iron, manganese, and chromium in personal air samples were due to exposure to steel dust in the NYC subway. Airborne concentrations of these three metals associated with fine particulate matter were observed to be more than 100 times greater in the subway environment than in home indoor or outdoor settings in NYC. While there are currently no known health effects at the airborne levels observed in the subway system, the primary aim of the ongoing pilot study is to ascertain whether the levels of these metals in the subway air affect concentrations of these metals or related metabolites in the blood or urine of exposed transit workers, who due to their job activities could plausibly have appreciably higher exposures than typical commuters. The study design involves recruitment of 40 transit workers representing a large range in expected exposures to steel dust, the collection of personal air samples of fine particulate matter, and the collection of blood and urine samples from each monitored transit worker.