| 英文摘要 |
Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) first announced recommendation levels for 10 indoor air quality indexes in 2005. Nevertheless, scientific information has continued to grow and the need to revisit whether the proposed values reflect the local realities in Taiwan or the existing standard method was appropriate in future application has gained concensus. Objectives of this current study include:
1.Analyzing the HCHO levels distribution in different indoor environments in Taiwan, and measuring the levels and species of VOCs in Taiwan to propose revised standards for local application. Moreover, this project will complete the sampling of major semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs), and collect references on sources and health outcomes of SVOCs.
2.Preliminary assessment of the characteristics and distributions of fungi species with potential health risk in indoor environments.
3.Develop a preliminary non-invasive measurement of comprehensive biomarkers so that assessment the relationship between indoor environmental factors and health outcomes.
4.Assess the serviceability of real-time instruments in indoor environments, and make the relative standards.
The major achievements, findings and recommendations of this study are summarized as following:
1.A comprehensive literature review was performed on the environmental fate and health risk of semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs), especially for phthalate esters (PAEs), in indoor environments. The major phthalate were DEHP and DNOP with median concentrations of 520 μg/g dust and 135.1 μg/g dust, respectively. Estimated average daily doses of phthalates from ingestion, dermal and inhalation exposures are less than the reference doses (RfD) established by US EPA and tolerable daily intake (TDI) set by EFSA. The difference in exposure estimates between children and adults in this study supports previous reports that children are at greater risk from pollutants that accumulate indoors. A risk based approach for setting PAEs IAQ standards based on RfD and TDI values is recommended. However, to establish a comprehensive indoor PAEs database may be more important than the issue of standard setting at this stage.
2.Our study was found that the genera of Aspergillus spp. and Penicillium spp. were the most common fungi in the indoor environment, and their growth were easily affect by the environmental characteristic factors like house age, building materias, and had significant health concern, so we finally suggested that Aspergillus spp. and Penicillium spp. could be the fungal indexs when the rules draw up in the future. Besides, we established an qPCR analysis methods to detect the concentration of total fungi and species of Aspergillus, and the results showed a positive association with culturable concentration, and the species of Aspergillus like A. versicolor, A. fumigates, A. flavus, A. niger which were related to health concern were also detected in these public environment.
3.Our study measured the health indicators, bio-samples and indoor environmental indexes for 88 subjects in 15 offices. We used linear regression models to examine the effects of environment and individual factors on allostatic load model, SBS (Sick Building Symptoms) and 8-OHdG. Results showed that allostatic load model and SBS were not significantly correlated with environmental indexes, but there were significant correction between temperature, light TVOC and HCHO and 8-OHdG levels. Our study only collected 15 offices, researcher are need to collect more samples to investigate the relationship between environmental indexes and allostatic load and SBS.
4.Data of real-time monitor for CO, CO2 and O3 were compared with standard method, we suggested that only CO2 real-time monitor is more appropriate to measure the levels of CO2 in field, but it still must be assessed the association between real-time monitor and standard method to confirm that whether different kinds of CO2 real-time monitors can be used to measure the levels of CO2 in indoor. Base on the use rules of real-time monitors and the sampling data at 16 fields, the project accomplished a draft document for “The standard testing method for using real-time monitors for CO, CO2 and O3”, and suggested that the contents should include: (1) the information of basic functions of instrument, (2) the items, level and flow path of compartison before sampling, (3) the operational guideline during sampling, (4) the collection and analysis of sampling data, and (5) the items and flow path of checking.
|