Volatile Organic Compounds Exposure and Health Risks among Street Venders in Urban Area, Bangkok

Abstract

Air pollution has been for a long time a danger to human health and ecosystems. Many of the world\'s large cities today have bad air quality and can have a lot of health problems because of air pollution. Health risk of volatile organic compounds (VOCs: benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene (BTEX) and carbonyl compounds; CCs) exposures and their associations with non-specific symptoms of street venders at main roadsides were assessed in Pathumwan Area, central Bangkok, Thailand. A questionnaire was performed for characteristics and non-specific symptoms of street venders. Ambient air and personal air samples were collected at 5 sites of main roadsides and street venders for 8 h during work time. They were collected using 2,4 DNPH cartridge for carbonyl compounds (CCs) by HPLC/UV and activated charcoal tube for BTEX analyses by GC/FID. The results of this study showed that ambient air and personal air samples were not significant different. The life time cancer risk of street venders of benzene, ethylbenzene, formaldehyde and acetaldehyde exposures were 3.12E-06, 8.00E-08, 3.20E-06 and 6.02E-07 which total cancer risk was higher than acceptable limited. But hazard quoteint (HQ) ranges of benzene, xylene, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde and propionaldehyde exposures were lower than 1. The total cancer risk (7.00E-06) of these workers was higher than acceptable limited but hazard index (HI) was lower than limited value. The prevalence of headache, fatigue, dizziness and throat irritation symptoms of street venders were 58.0%, 47.8%, 26.5% and 24.6% respectively which most of them were associated with VOCs exposures.