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Volatile Organic Compounds in Finnish Office Environments in 2010–2019 and Their Relevance to Adverse Health Effects

We gathered recent (2010–2019) data on the VOC and formaldehyde levels in Finnish non-industrial indoor work environments. The data comprised 9789 VOC and 1711 formaldehyde samples collected from the indoor air of offices, schools, kindergartens, and healthcare offices. We assessed the health risks...

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Autores principales: Wallenius, Kaisa, Hovi, Hanna, Remes, Jouko, Mahiout, Selma, Liukkonen, Tuula
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8999080/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35410093
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19074411
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author Wallenius, Kaisa
Hovi, Hanna
Remes, Jouko
Mahiout, Selma
Liukkonen, Tuula
author_facet Wallenius, Kaisa
Hovi, Hanna
Remes, Jouko
Mahiout, Selma
Liukkonen, Tuula
author_sort Wallenius, Kaisa
collection PubMed
description We gathered recent (2010–2019) data on the VOC and formaldehyde levels in Finnish non-industrial indoor work environments. The data comprised 9789 VOC and 1711 formaldehyde samples collected from the indoor air of offices, schools, kindergartens, and healthcare offices. We assessed the health risks by comparing the measured concentrations to the health-based RW I/II and EU-LCI reference values. The concentrations of individual VOCs and formaldehyde in these work environments were generally very low and posed no health risks. Total VOC concentration (TVOC) as well as concentrations of several individual compounds, including aromatic compounds, alkanes, 2-ethyl-1-hexanol, and formaldehyde, showed clearly decreasing trends. In contrast, several aldehydes, acids, and a few other compounds showed increasing trends. However, the increasing trends did not seem to affect the higher ends of the distributions, as the 95th percentile values remained fairly stable or decreased over the years. The VOC patterns in the environments of the offices, schools, kindergartens, and healthcare offices varied, probably reflecting the differences in typical activities and the use of materials. However, we do not expect these differences to be relevant to health outcomes.
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spelling pubmed-89990802022-04-12 Volatile Organic Compounds in Finnish Office Environments in 2010–2019 and Their Relevance to Adverse Health Effects Wallenius, Kaisa Hovi, Hanna Remes, Jouko Mahiout, Selma Liukkonen, Tuula Int J Environ Res Public Health Article We gathered recent (2010–2019) data on the VOC and formaldehyde levels in Finnish non-industrial indoor work environments. The data comprised 9789 VOC and 1711 formaldehyde samples collected from the indoor air of offices, schools, kindergartens, and healthcare offices. We assessed the health risks by comparing the measured concentrations to the health-based RW I/II and EU-LCI reference values. The concentrations of individual VOCs and formaldehyde in these work environments were generally very low and posed no health risks. Total VOC concentration (TVOC) as well as concentrations of several individual compounds, including aromatic compounds, alkanes, 2-ethyl-1-hexanol, and formaldehyde, showed clearly decreasing trends. In contrast, several aldehydes, acids, and a few other compounds showed increasing trends. However, the increasing trends did not seem to affect the higher ends of the distributions, as the 95th percentile values remained fairly stable or decreased over the years. The VOC patterns in the environments of the offices, schools, kindergartens, and healthcare offices varied, probably reflecting the differences in typical activities and the use of materials. However, we do not expect these differences to be relevant to health outcomes. MDPI 2022-04-06 /pmc/articles/PMC8999080/ /pubmed/35410093 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19074411 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/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 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Wallenius, Kaisa
Hovi, Hanna
Remes, Jouko
Mahiout, Selma
Liukkonen, Tuula
Volatile Organic Compounds in Finnish Office Environments in 2010–2019 and Their Relevance to Adverse Health Effects
title Volatile Organic Compounds in Finnish Office Environments in 2010–2019 and Their Relevance to Adverse Health Effects
title_full Volatile Organic Compounds in Finnish Office Environments in 2010–2019 and Their Relevance to Adverse Health Effects
title_fullStr Volatile Organic Compounds in Finnish Office Environments in 2010–2019 and Their Relevance to Adverse Health Effects
title_full_unstemmed Volatile Organic Compounds in Finnish Office Environments in 2010–2019 and Their Relevance to Adverse Health Effects
title_short Volatile Organic Compounds in Finnish Office Environments in 2010–2019 and Their Relevance to Adverse Health Effects
title_sort volatile organic compounds in finnish office environments in 2010–2019 and their relevance to adverse health effects
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8999080/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35410093
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19074411
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