Benzene uptake among automobile mechanics: concentrations in exhaled breath using a self-administered sampling technique

Details

• Personal Author:
  Egeghy P ; Gwin, Kristin K. ; Hertz-Picciotto I ; Nylander-Frency L ; Rappaport SM
• Description:
  Automobile mechanics constitute a large population of workers exposed to benzene, a known human carcinogen, through their contact with gasoline vapor and automobile exhaust. However, little has been reported on the benzene uptake associated with these exposures. We used self-administered monitoring, a technique which has been gaining popularity in exposure assessment, to repeatedly measure uptake (via benzene in exhaled breath) among 83 workers from 12 automobile repair garages in North Carolina. Post-exposure benzene concentrations in breath averaged 57 ug/m3 (SD = 157 ug/m3) with a range of <3.2 - 2,030 ug/m3. Preliminary analysis using mixed-effects statistical models yielded three significant predictors of benzene concentration in breath, namely, benzene exposure concentration (p < 0.0001), pre-exposure benzene concentration in breath (p = 0.0003), and smoking status (p = 0.0014). The within-person component comprised 97% of the total variance, indicating that environmental rather than interindividual differences were primarily responsible for the large variability in uptake. We validated the self breath measurements with expert measurements performed nearly concurrently on a subset of workers. The intraclass correlation coefficient for 63 pairs of breath samples was 0.70, indicating good agreement between the "self' and "expert" methods. This study demonstrates that self-administered monitoring can be efficiently used to measure biomarkers in exhaled breath. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Automobiles Benzene Biomarkers Carcinogens Men Occupational Health Respiratory System Safety Smokers Women Workplace

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• Keywords:
  Automobile-repair-shops Automotive-industry Benzenes Breathing Exposure-levels Humans Smoking Statistical-analysis Work-environment Workers
• Publisher:
  American Industrial Hygiene Association
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Abstract or Summary
• Place as Subject:
  North Carolina ; Ohio ; OSHA Region 4 ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DSHEFS - Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  33
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20041362
• Citation:
  American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Exposition, June 2-7, 2001, New Orleans, Louisiana. Fairfax, VA: American Industrial Hygiene Association, 2001 Jun; :33
• CAS Registry Number:
  Benzene (CAS RN 71-43-2)
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2001
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Exposition, June 2-7, 2001, New Orleans, Louisiana
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:7971ac7aea09c03357bea4bfa80c469193dfa6c788ace4a0a724eeddee530723a72b6fb6b1e6a22ac9565665390bb694c61cd5cb4fe4d4f6bce799b5e4796ffb
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/193949/cdc_193949_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 188.88 KB ]