Assessment of Children’s Metal Exposure via Hand Wipe, Outdoor Soil and Indoor Dust and Their Associations with Blood Biomarkers

Beibei Wang, Fei Gao, Yujie Li, Chunye Lin, Hongguang Cheng and Xiaoli Duan ()
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Beibei Wang: School of Energy and Environmental Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China
Fei Gao: School of Energy and Environmental Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China
Yujie Li: School of Energy and Environmental Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China
Chunye Lin: State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Hongguang Cheng: State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Xiaoli Duan: School of Energy and Environmental Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 21, 1-15

Abstract: The soil environment contributes considerably to human exposure to metals. This study aimed to comprehensively compare children’s exposure to soil metals using different sampling approaches (i.e., hand wipe, indoor dust and outdoor soil) and assessment strategies, combing the method of external exposure evaluation and the correlation with internal biomarkers. Environmental exposure samples (hand wipe, outdoor soil and indoor dust), blood samples and child-specific exposure factors were simultaneously collected for 60 children aged 3 to 12 years from an area of northwestern China. Eight typical toxic metals were analyzed. Results showed that metal levels in hand wipes were associated with children’s age, years of residency and the ground types of the play areas. Hand-to-mouth contact was an important pathway for children’s metal exposure, with the corresponding oral exposure cancer risk to Cr already exceeding the maximum acceptable level. In comparison, metal concentrations in hand wipes were one to seven times higher than those in outdoor soil and indoor dust. Even greater discrepancies were found for the estimated exposure dose, which could lead to differences of several to dozens of times. In addition, Pb, Mn and Cr in hand wipes were significantly correlated with those in blood, whereas no relationships were found with soil and dust. This study indicates that the selection of different sampling and assessing strategies could lead to great differences in children metal exposure outcomes. It also suggests that hand wipe, which could reflect the true and integrated exposure level and the individual difference, serves as a better matrix to assess children’s metal exposure compared to soil and dust. Further studies should standardize the sampling method for hand wipes and verify its applicability for other age groups.

Keywords: metals; children; hand wipe; outdoor soil; indoor dust (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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