| Health Effects of a Mixture of Indoor Air Volatile Organics, Their Ozone Oxidation Products, and Stress Nancy Fiedler,1,2 Robert Laumbach,1,2 Kathie Kelly-McNeil,1,2 Paul
Lioy,1,2 Zhi-Hua Fan,1,2 Junfeng Zhang,1,2,3 John
Ottenweller,4 Pamela Ohman-Strickland,3 and Howard
Kipen1,2 1Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, University
of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School,
Piscataway, New Jersey, USA; 2Environmental and Occupational Health
Sciences Institute, Piscataway, New Jersey, USA; 3University of
Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-School of Public Health, Piscataway,
New Jersey, USA; 4Veterans Affairs Medical Center, East Orange,
New Jersey, USA Abstract
In our present study we tested the health effects among women of controlled exposures to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) , with and without ozone (O3) , and psychological stress. Each subject was exposed to the following three conditions at 1-week intervals (within-subject factor) : VOCs (26 mg/m3) , VOCs + O3 (26 mg/m3 + 40 ppb) , and ambient air with a 1-min spike of VOCs (2.5 mg/m3) . As a between-subjects factor, half the subjects were randomly assigned to perform a stressor. Subjects were 130 healthy women (mean age, 27.2 years ; mean education, 15.2 years) . Health effects measured before, during, and after each 140-min exposure included symptoms, neurobehavioral performance, salivary cortisol, and lung function. Mixing VOCs with O3 was shown to produce irritating compounds including aldehydes, hydrogen peroxide, organic acids, secondary organic aerosols, and ultrafine particles (particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter < 0.1 µm) . Exposure to VOCs with and without O3 did not result in significant subjective or objective health effects. Psychological stress significantly increased salivary cortisol and symptoms of anxiety regardless of exposure condition. Neither lung function nor neurobehavioral performance was compromised by exposure to VOCs or VOCs + O3. Although numerous epidemiologic studies suggest that symptoms are significantly increased among workers in buildings with poor ventilation and mixtures of VOCs, our acute exposure study was not consistent with these epidemiologic findings. Stress appears to be a more significant factor than chemical exposures in affecting some of the health end points measured in our present study. Key words: building-related illness, lung function, neurobehavioral, ozone, stress, symptoms, volatile organic compounds. Environ Health Perspect 113:1542-1548 (2005) . doi:10.1289/ehp.8132 available via http://dx.doi.org/ [Online 21 July 2005]
Address correspondence to N. Fiedler, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, 170 Frelinghuysen Rd., Room 210, Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA. Telephone: (732) 445-0123 Ext. 625. Fax: (732) 445-0130. E-mail: nfiedler@eohsi.rutgers.edu Funding for our research was supported by a grant from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (R01 OH03691-01) and by National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Center grant ES05022. The authors declare they have no competing financial interests. Received 21 March 2005 ; accepted 21 July 2005. The full version of this article is available for free in HTML or PDF formats. |
