Urinary 1 -Hydroxypyrene as an Indicator for Assessing the Exposures of Booth Attendants of a Highway Toll Station to Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons.

In this study, 32 booth attendants (the exposure group) and 21 in pre-job training to become booth attendants (the reference group) were randomly selected from a highway toll station. Personal PAH samplings were conducted on the exposure group on each day during the studied workweek. Pre-shift urinary 1-hydroxylpyrene levels (1-OHP) were measured on the first day of the workweek (BM[SUBpre]) for both the exposure and reference groups, but the post-shift 1-OHP levels were measured on the last day of the workweek (BM[SUBpost]) only for the exposure group. For the exposure group, we found that their mean total PAH exposure level (C[SUBtotal] PAHs) was 11 400 ng/m[SUP3] and that their mean BM[SUBpost] was significantly higher than their mean BM[SUBpre] (= 3.02 and 0.910 μmol of 1-OHP/mol of creatinine, respectively). In addition, the mean BM[SUBpre] for the exposure group were higher than that for the reference group (= 0.410 μmol of 1-OHP/mol of creatinine). The above results suggest that vehicle exhaust significantly affects the booth attendants' 1-OHP levels. None of the three personal factors (age, work experience, and smoking habit), except for C[SUBtotal] PAHs, had a significant effect on predicting booth attendants' BM[SUBinc] levels (=BM[SUBpost]-BM[SUBpre]) (R[SUP2] = 0.57). The above results suggest that urinary 1-OHP could be a suitable biomarker for characterizing workers' PAH exposures. Similarly, we found that none of the three personal characteristics, except for the involved vehicle flow rates and vehicle types, had a significant effect on predicting booth attendants' BM[SUBinc] levels (R[SUP2] = 0.60). The above result suggests that the traffic densities of various traffic types could be a suitable surrogate indicator for assessing workers' PAH exposures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]