Personal Exposure of Children to Formaldehyde in Winter
Exposure to formaldehyde may impact on the health of children. Children spend most of their time indoors, however, there is little data on the contribution of indoor formaldehyde concentrations to personal exposure in children. The aim of this cross sectional study was to investigate the relationship between formaldehyde indoor, outdoor and personal exposure concentrations in children.
Forty-one primary school children (aged between 8 and 12) were recruited from two areas of Perth Western Australia (Calista and Duncraig). Each child wore a personal sampler over a 24 hour period. Samplers were also located indoors at home, outdoors at centralised locations and indoors at school for the corresponding period. A questionnaire about lifestyle and behaviour and a daily activity diary were completed. For each child sampling was conducted in both winter and summer. Passive samplers used filter papers impregnated with 2,4-dinitrophenylhadrazine (DNPH), with formaldehyde detected using high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC).
In winter there was a wide range of personal exposure. Median personal exposure concentrations were 9.14ppb at Duncraig and 10.67ppb at Calista. Outdoor concentrations were significantly lower than both personal and indoor concentrations. Indoor, outdoor and classroom median concentrations at Duncraig were 12.74ppb, 0.70ppb and 2.60ppb respectively, and at Calista were 13.78ppb, below detection limit and 7.98ppb respectively. There were strong correlations between personal exposure and domestic concentrations at Duncraig and Calista (r2 = 0.782 and 0.912 respectively). Summer results are still being analysed.
The indoor domestic environment is the most important source of formaldehyde exposure for children during winter.