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A Decade of Studies of Human Exposure: What Have We Learned? 1
Author(s) -
Wallace Lance
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
risk analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.972
H-Index - 130
eISSN - 1539-6924
pISSN - 0272-4332
DOI - 10.1111/j.1539-6924.1993.tb01059.x
Subject(s) - agency (philosophy) , citation , library science , state agency , history , operations research , computer science , engineering , sociology , subject (documents) , social science
All four TEAM Studies operated on the basis concepts of probability sampling and direct measurement of exposure. These concepts made possible the discovery that, for nearly all of the 50 or so targeted pollutants, personal exposures exceeded outdoor levels by large margins. The conclusion, corroborated in part by other studies around the world, is that the major sources of exposure are personal activities and consumer products. This result is at odds with most existing environmental legislation, which generally does not deal with products or with indoor air in homes, in favor of regulating "major" stationary and mobile sources. These sources, however, provide only between 2-25% of personal exposure to most of the two dozen or so toxic and carcinogenic VOCs and pesticides included in the TEAM Studies. Several official publications have accepted this point, finding that funding priorities are skewed, with lower-risk problems receiving more funding than higher-risk problems such as indoor air pollution. However, just as exposures are due to small nearby sources, control of exposures can often be instituted by small individual actions. Among these are stopping smoking, reducing or eliminating the use of moth balls and bathroom deodorizers containing p-dichlorobenzene, reducing or eliminating the use of dry-cleaned clothes or airing them out for a day, and maintaining dust-free homes.