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Dust Events and Indoor Air Quality in Residential Homes in Kuwait

Kuwait is a developed Middle Eastern country that is impacted by frequent dust storms from regional and/or remote deserts. The effectiveness of keeping homes tightly closed during these events to reduce dust exposures was assessed using indoor and outdoor particle samples at 10 residences within the...

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Autores principales: Yuan, Yufei, Alahmad, Barrak, Kang, Choong-Min, Al-Marri, Fhaid, Kommula, Venkateswarlu, Bouhamra, Walid, Koutrakis, Petros
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7178282/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32260094
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17072433
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author Yuan, Yufei
Alahmad, Barrak
Kang, Choong-Min
Al-Marri, Fhaid
Kommula, Venkateswarlu
Bouhamra, Walid
Koutrakis, Petros
author_facet Yuan, Yufei
Alahmad, Barrak
Kang, Choong-Min
Al-Marri, Fhaid
Kommula, Venkateswarlu
Bouhamra, Walid
Koutrakis, Petros
author_sort Yuan, Yufei
collection PubMed
description Kuwait is a developed Middle Eastern country that is impacted by frequent dust storms from regional and/or remote deserts. The effectiveness of keeping homes tightly closed during these events to reduce dust exposures was assessed using indoor and outdoor particle samples at 10 residences within the metropolitan Kuwait City area. Specifically, this study compared indoor and outdoor levels of black carbon and 19 trace elements (Na, Mg, Al, Si, S, Cl, K, Ca, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn, Br, Sr, and Zr) during dust and non-dust events and found that particle penetration efficiencies were lower during dust storm events (less than 20–30%) than during non-dust storm events (40–60%). Coarse particles had lower penetration efficiency compared to fine particles, which is due to differences in infiltration rates and settling velocities between these two size fractions. Our findings suggest that increasing home insulation could be an effective strategy to reduce indoor exposure to crustal particles from dust storm events in residential houses of Kuwait City.
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spelling pubmed-71782822020-04-28 Dust Events and Indoor Air Quality in Residential Homes in Kuwait Yuan, Yufei Alahmad, Barrak Kang, Choong-Min Al-Marri, Fhaid Kommula, Venkateswarlu Bouhamra, Walid Koutrakis, Petros Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Kuwait is a developed Middle Eastern country that is impacted by frequent dust storms from regional and/or remote deserts. The effectiveness of keeping homes tightly closed during these events to reduce dust exposures was assessed using indoor and outdoor particle samples at 10 residences within the metropolitan Kuwait City area. Specifically, this study compared indoor and outdoor levels of black carbon and 19 trace elements (Na, Mg, Al, Si, S, Cl, K, Ca, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn, Br, Sr, and Zr) during dust and non-dust events and found that particle penetration efficiencies were lower during dust storm events (less than 20–30%) than during non-dust storm events (40–60%). Coarse particles had lower penetration efficiency compared to fine particles, which is due to differences in infiltration rates and settling velocities between these two size fractions. Our findings suggest that increasing home insulation could be an effective strategy to reduce indoor exposure to crustal particles from dust storm events in residential houses of Kuwait City. MDPI 2020-04-03 2020-04 /pmc/articles/PMC7178282/ /pubmed/32260094 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17072433 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Yuan, Yufei
Alahmad, Barrak
Kang, Choong-Min
Al-Marri, Fhaid
Kommula, Venkateswarlu
Bouhamra, Walid
Koutrakis, Petros
Dust Events and Indoor Air Quality in Residential Homes in Kuwait
title Dust Events and Indoor Air Quality in Residential Homes in Kuwait
title_full Dust Events and Indoor Air Quality in Residential Homes in Kuwait
title_fullStr Dust Events and Indoor Air Quality in Residential Homes in Kuwait
title_full_unstemmed Dust Events and Indoor Air Quality in Residential Homes in Kuwait
title_short Dust Events and Indoor Air Quality in Residential Homes in Kuwait
title_sort dust events and indoor air quality in residential homes in kuwait
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7178282/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32260094
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17072433
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