Patry-Parisien Jennifer, Wong Suzy L, Zhu Jiping
Health Statistics Division, Statistics Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0T6.
Health Rep. 2013 May;24(5):3-10.
The presence of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in indoor air may have negative health consequences, ranging from mild irritation to more severe illnesses. Indoor air data are required to assess Canadian population exposure to these VOCs.
The 2009 to 2011 Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS) included an indoor air component. Respondents who went to the mobile examination centre to participate in the physical measures section of the survey were asked to deploy an indoor air sampler in their homes for 7 consecutive days. Data were collected for 84 VOCs. Control samples that were implemented included duplicates and blanks.
Of the 4,686 indoor air samplers given to CHMS respondents, 4,581 were deployed and returned to the testing laboratory. Data from 3,857 samplers met the criteria for inclusion in the CHMS indoor air data files. Thirteen VOCs had a mean percentage difference between the duplicate pairs greater than 30%. The field and cleaning blank geometric means and medians were lower than 1 μg/m³ for 83 VOCs.
The high percentage of mobile examination centre participants who deployed samplers in their homes, the sampler return rate, and the quality of the data obtained demonstrate the feasibility of relying on respondents to handle indoor air samplers for large-scale collection of residential VOC data.
