Abstract
Pollen exposure in occupational settings involves different categories of workers. In this paper the effects of diurnal pollen variations have been evaluated in two sites characterized by different vegetation and urbanization: the suburban site of Tor Vergata (TV) and the rural site of Monte Porzio Catone (MPC). Aerobiological and meteorological monitoring was performed in the two sites during the winter of 2017. The data analysis focuses on the comparison between pollen concentrations observed in relation to meteorological variables. In general, it can be stated that the indoor and outdoor dynamics for MPC and TV are different, with the outdoor concentration of pollen for MPC always higher than for TV, in accordance with significant presence of vegetation. The high nocturnal peaks detected in MPC and completely absent in TV could be caused by the presence of particular conditions of stagnation combined with greater emissions from the pollen sources. Furthermore the higher I/O ratio observed during the working hours in TV compared to MPC could be ascribed to the workers’ behavior. Exposure to pollen can be responsible for several health effects and the knowledge of its level can be useful to improve the evaluation and management of this biological risk.
Highlights
Pollen is one of the main components of bioaerosol
Data analysis focuses on the comparison between pollen concentrations observed in two sites, relatively close to each other but characterized by profoundly different land use; the analysis aims to highlight the differences that can occur during the working days (WDs) and the non-working days (NWDs), working hours (WHs) and the non-working hours (NWHs), in each monitoring site in order to observe possible and different behavior patterns in relation to specific conditions, regarding the exposure of workers [19]
Starting from the observations collected every 30-min, average values for indoor and outdoor pollen concentrations were calculated for the considered study period
Summary
Pollen is one of the main components of bioaerosol. As the microgametophyte of spermatophytes, its role in the life cycle of seed plants (both wild and cultivated) is crucial, and its presence in the air is ubiquitous. From a human health perspective, pollen can be seen as an aerobiological pollutant mainly responsible for respiratory and allergic diseases [1,2,3,4,5,6] and has been recently associated with different health effects. Environmental exposure is a critical aspect and several studies evidenced that different outdoor, indoor, rural, and urban environments may contribute to determine or exacerbate the health effects [12,13,14]. In this regard a key role should be attributed to occupational settings that may increase pre-existing sensitization and/or respiratory pathologies due to other biological, chemical and physical agents mainly present in workplaces.
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