Levels of microbial agents in floor dust during remediation of a water-damaged office building

Details

• Personal Author:
  Cho SJ ; Cox-Ganser, Jean M. ; Kreiss, Kathleen ; Park, Ju-Hyeong
• Description:
  We examined the effects of remediation on loads of culturable fungi in floor dust collected from a large water-damaged office building during 4 cross-sectional surveys (2002, 2004, 2005, and 2007, respectively). We created a binary remediation variable for each year for each sampled workstation using information on remediation associated with water damage obtained from building management and used generalized linear mixed-effects models. We found significantly lower levels of culturable total and hydrophilic fungi at remediated workstations than at nonremediated workstations in 2004 and 2005 after completion of major remediation. The remediation effect, however, disappeared in 2007. The fraction of hydrophilic to total fungal concentrations was lowest in 2004, increased in 2005 and was highest in 2007. Our results indicate that the 2003 remediation lowered dust indices of dampness temporarily, but remediation was incomplete, consistent with a building assessment report of water infiltration. This study demonstrates the utility of longitudinal evaluation of microbial indices during remediation of water damage in this building, in which elimination of sources of moisture was not fully addressed. Our findings indicate that the fraction of hydrophilic fungi derived from concentrations of fungal species may be a useful index for assessing the long-term effectiveness of remediation. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Air Pollution, Indoor Dust Environmental Health Environmental Monitoring Filtration Microbiology Occupational Health Particulate Matter Safety Workplace
• Keywords:
  Author Keywords: Mold Dust-analysis Dust-collection Dust-exposure Endotoxin Exposure-assessment Hydrophilic Fungi Indoor-air-pollution Indoor-environmental-quality Mathematical-models Microorganisms Microscopic-analysis Models Office Building Particulate-dust Particulate-sampling-methods Remediation Water Damage Work-environment Workplace-studies

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• ISSN:
  0905-6947
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 3 ; West Virginia
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DRDS - Division of Respiratory Disease Studies
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  417-426
• Volume:
  21
• Issue:
  5
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20038801
• Citation:
  Indoor Air 2011 Oct; 21(5):417-426
• Contact Point Address:
  Ju-Hyeong Park, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Division of Respiratory Disease Studies, MS 2800, 1095 Willowdale Road, Morgantown, WV 26505 USA
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2012
• NORA Priority Area:
  Services
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Source Full Name:
  Indoor Air
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:8e2b702d81183e417e76921ffa4b5df9edc90de305b2840267f7158989f53902eb2da977012e724d37b5c61c54f0623d00c2e5cdd2d0916e240a702d86d804cb
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/192377/cdc_192377_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 268.20 KB ]