An analysis study of the exposure factors from an environmental hazardous material (1-hydroxyperene)

Abstract

BACKGROUND Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are composed more than two benzene rings that are formed by incomplete combustion of organic materials or the process of high-pressure. PAHs has potential carcinogenic and/or mutagenic properties. 1-Hydroxypyrene, the metabolite of pyrene, is used to assess the exposure of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). AIMS In this study, we analyzed the PAHs exposure levels of Korean adults participating to “Korean National Environmental Health Survey”, using the urinary 1-OHP levels as a biomarker for PAHs, and evaluated the exposure factors that closely associated with the level of urinary 1-OHP. METHODS We used log transformed urinary 1-OHP (log(1-OHP)) value as a dependent variable for analysis of the association with exposure factors. Multiple linear regression and logistic regression model were used to evaluate the relationship between log(1-OHP) and exposure factors. RESULTS In a multiple analysis, we observed that 1-OHP was significantly associated with variables including age group, education, smoke, drink, heating source, distance from the road, and charcoal grilled or roasted meet consumption. Results from multiple logistic regression analysis, we observed significant finding with variables including gender(male OR:1.53 (95% CI:1.02,2.31), education (above college OR:0.32 (95% CI:0.18,0.54) and smoke (current smoker OR:17.73 (95% CI:11.02,28.51). We evaluated the association between traffic related air pollution factors (use of public transportation, type of transportation and distance from the road) and log(1-OHP), however, only distance from the road was significantly associated with log(1-OHP) CONCLUSIONS The analysis shows that the factors, such as smoking habit, gender and charcoal grilled or roasted food consumption are significantly associated with log(1-OHP). These results may provide a supportive evidence of the finding from previous studies. These analysis results can be used as reference for policy making for reducing environmental hazardous materials.