PM 2.5 in Urban and Rural Nursery Schools in Upper Silesia, Poland: Trace Elements Analysis

Anna Mainka, Elwira Zajusz-Zubek and Konrad Kaczmarek
Additional contact information
Anna Mainka: Department of Air Protection, Silesian University of Technology, 22B Konarskiego St., Gliwice 44-100, Poland
Elwira Zajusz-Zubek: Department of Air Protection, Silesian University of Technology, 22B Konarskiego St., Gliwice 44-100, Poland
Konrad Kaczmarek: Institute of Mathematics, Silesian University of Technology, 23 Kaszubska St., Gliwice 44-100, Poland

IJERPH, 2015, vol. 12, issue 7, 1-19

Abstract: Indoor air quality (IAQ) in nursery schools is an emerging public health challenge. Particular attention should be paid to younger children, because they are more vulnerable to air pollution than older children. Among air pollutants, fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) is of the greatest interest mainly due to its strong association with acute and chronic effects on children’s health. In this paper, we present concentrations of PM 2.5 and the composition of its trace elements at naturally ventilated nursery schools located in the area of Gliwice, Poland. The nursery schools were selected to characterize areas with different degrees of urbanization and traffic densities during the winter and spring seasons. The results indicate there is a problem with elevated concentrations of PM 2.5 inside the examined classrooms. The children’s exposure to trace elements was different based on localization and season. PM 2.5 concentration and its trace element composition have been studied using correlation coefficients between the different trace elements, the enrichment factor (EF) and principal component analysis (PCA). PCA allowed the identification of the three components: anthropogenic and geogenic sources (37.2%), soil dust contaminated by sewage sludge dumping (18.6%) and vehicular emissions (19.5%).

Keywords: indoor air quality; children; PM 2.5; trace elements; enrichment factor (EF); principal component analysis (PCA) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/12/7/7990/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/12/7/7990/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:12:y:2015:i:7:p:7990-8008:d:52515

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().