Characteristics, sources, and health risks of atmospheric PM₁₀-bound heavy metals in a populated middle eastern city

ABSTRACT

This study reports on the characteristics, sources, and health risks of atmospheric PM₁₀-bound heavy metals (HMs) on citizenship living in different regions of Ahvaz, Southwest of Iran were investigated during 2016–2017. A total of 84 samples were analyzed from different regions: (S1) industrial, (S2) high traffic, and (S3) residential. Blood samples were collected from people who came to the east health center of Ahvaz. High volume air samplers, equipped with quartz fiber filters (8 × 10) were utilized for sampling in this study. Inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) was also used for HMs. Risk assessment and hazard index of these pollutants were estimated, using USEPA’s exposure parameters. Based on the results, the highest and the lowest concentration of HM were observed in industrial and residential areas. Blood’s HMs concentration for chromium (Cr), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), and zinc (Zn) were 2.932, 4.199, 8.425, and 71.2 μg/dL, respectively. In conclusion, increasing exposure concentration of HMs would have a significant potential for increased cancer and risk of diseases. The results of this study show that increasing exposure concentration to HM in the studied scenarios have a significant potential for generating different health endpoints, although exposing to HMs led to generating diseases in individuals particularly in polluted and populated districts; so, environmental measures should be considered by urban air authorities to mitigate the concentration of these pollutants in ambient air.

KEYWORDS:

• Heavy metals
• atmospheric
• blood
• air pollutant
• health risks
• Middle Eastern

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Disclosure statement

E. Idani has held several government positions in the Ministry of Health and National Medical Council, and was the Governmental University Chancellor of Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, which provided financial support for the study. The authors confirm that these roles and any other governmental positions or membership of relevant committees, did not influence the outcomes of the research.

Additional information

Funding

This work was part of a funded PhD thesis of Mohammad Javad Mohammadi, a student at Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences (AJUMS), and the financial support of this study (U-95094) was provided by AJUMS.