Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Yale School of Public Health, 60 College Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06510, United States.
Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Yale University, 17 Hillhouse Avenue, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, United States.
Environ Sci Technol. 2021 Mar 16;55(6):3796-3806. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.0c05522. Epub 2021 Feb 24.
Chemical exposures are a major risk factor for many diseases. Comprehensive characterization of personal exposures is necessary to highlight chemicals of concern and factors that influence these chemical exposure dynamics. For this purpose, wearable passive samplers can be applied to assess longitudinal personal exposures to airborne contaminants. Questions remain regarding the impact of sampler placement at different locations of the body on the exposure profiles observed and how these placements affect the monitoring of seasonal dynamics in exposures. This study assessed personal air contaminant exposure using passive samplers worn in parallel across 32 participant's wrists, chest, and shoes over 24 h. Samplers were analyzed by thermal desorption gas chromatography high-resolution mass spectrometry. Personal exposure profiles were similar for about one-third of the 275 identified chemicals, irrespective of sampler placement. Signals of certain semivolatile organic compounds (SVOCs) were enhanced in shoes and, to a lesser extent, wrist samplers, as compared to those in chest samplers. Signals of volatile organic compounds were less impacted by sampler placement. Results showed that chest samplers predominantly captured more volatile exposures, as compared to those of particle-bound exposures, which may indicate predominant monitoring of chemicals via the inhalation route of exposure for chest samplers. In contrast, shoe samplers were more sensitive to particle-bound SVOCs. Seventy-one chemicals changed across participants between winter and summer in the same manner for two or more different sampler placements on the body, whereas 122 chemicals were observed to have seasonal differences in only one placement. Hence, the placement in certain cases significantly impacts exposure dynamics observed. This work shows that it is essential in epidemiological studies undertaking exposure assessment to consider the consequence of the placement of exposure monitors.
化学暴露是许多疾病的一个主要风险因素。全面描述个人暴露情况对于突出关注的化学物质以及影响这些化学暴露动态的因素非常必要。为此，可以使用可穿戴式被动采样器来评估空气中污染物的纵向个人暴露情况。关于采样器在身体不同位置的放置对观察到的暴露情况的影响，以及这些放置如何影响暴露季节性动态的监测，仍存在一些问题。本研究使用可穿戴式被动采样器，在 32 名参与者的手腕、胸部和鞋子上平行佩戴 24 小时，评估个人空气污染物暴露情况。通过热解吸气相色谱高分辨率质谱法对采样器进行分析。在所识别的 275 种化学物质中，约有三分之一的化学物质的个人暴露情况相似，与采样器的放置位置无关。与胸部采样器相比，某些半挥发性有机化合物（SVOC）的信号在鞋子中得到增强，在手腕采样器中则略有增强。挥发性有机化合物的信号受采样器放置位置的影响较小。结果表明，与颗粒结合暴露相比，胸部采样器主要捕获更多挥发性暴露，这可能表明胸部采样器主要通过吸入途径监测化学物质。相比之下，鞋类采样器对颗粒结合的 SVOC 更为敏感。在同一位置，71 种化学物质在冬季和夏季之间发生了变化，而在身体的两个或更多不同位置，有 122 种化学物质仅在一个位置观察到季节性差异。因此，在某些情况下，采样器的放置位置显著影响观察到的暴露动态。这项工作表明，在进行暴露评估的流行病学研究中，考虑暴露监测器放置的后果至关重要。
