The exposure of temple workers to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons Chung-Yih Kuo a, ⁎ , Yu-Huan Yang a , Mu-Rong Chao b , Chiung-Wen Hu a a Department of Public Health, College of Health Care and Management, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung 40242, Taiwan, ROC b Department of Occupational Safety and Health, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung 40242, Taiwan, ROC ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: Received 9 October 2007 Received in revised form 2 April 2008 Accepted 3 April 2008 Available online 27 May 2008 Five temples, each a different size, were selected for this study. Two of the temples were located in Taichung City (in central Taiwan), and three were in Tainan City (in Southern Taiwan). Aerosols smaller than 10 μm aerodynamic diameter (PM 10 ) were collected by using personal collection samplers during pilgrim days (the first and fifteenth day of each lunar month) and normal days (all other days). Regression analysis showed that about 1.6 μg/m 3 of PM 10 contributed to the workers' exposure in the temples for each joss stick increase in the censer. The concentrations of total polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (t-PAHs) and carcinogenic PAHs (car-PAHs) on pilgrim days were higher than those on normal days. Mean concentrations of urinary 1-hydroxypyrene (1-OHP) in the pre-shift and post-shift workers of the five temples on normal days were 1.20 and 1.61 μg/g creatinine, respectively. Furthermore, the post-shift concentrations of 1-OHP in the workers of temples on pilgrim days were all higher than those of the workers of corresponding temples on normal days. Significant relationships between the urinary concentrations of 1-OHP and the exposure concentrations of pyrene, total PAHs and BaP eq were found in the workers of the temples. Results of linear regression showed that the increase of unit concentration (1 ng/m 3 ) of pyrene led to a 0.05 μg/g creatinine increase of urinary 1-OHP, while the increase of unit concentration (1 ng/m 3 ) of BaP eq resulted in an increase of 0.03 μg/g creatinine of urinary 1-OHP. Crown Copyright © 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) Urinary 1-OHP Incense 1. Introduction It is well known that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are produced by automobile exhaust, waste incineration, industrial processing, cigarette smoking, food broiling and agricultural waste burning. Therefore, humans are easily exposed to these ubiquitous compounds in their work places or living environ- ments. Due to very high concentrations of PAHs in work places with carbon black, coke ovens, coal and smelters, the exposure doses, cancer risk and the PAH metabolites, i.e. 1-hydroxyprene (1-OHP), for those workers have been well studied (Zmirou et al., 2000; Hansen et al., 1994; Strunk et al., 2002; Petry et al., 1996). Significant regulations for protecting the workers' health have been established. However, there are still workers in some other special occupations whose exposure to high PAH concentrations in particular sites has been less reported. Burning incense is a necessary ceremonial practice in Taoist and Buddhist temples. Incense burning can generate many pollutants, such as carcinogenic PAHs (Lung and Hu, 2003; Kuo et al., 2003). Lin et al. (2002) indicated that the concentrations of PAHs inside temples in Taiwan were about 27 times higher than those outdoors. This implied that the temple was a significant PAH source. There are tens of thousands of officially registered temples throughout Taiwan. Usually, larger temples hire workers to deal with the affairs of pilgrims (who will normally be making incense offerings) or SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 401 (2008) 44 – 50 ⁎ Corresponding author. Department of Public Health, College of Health Care and Management, Chung Shan Medical University, No. 110 Chien-Kuo N Rd., Sec. 1, Taichung 40242, Taiwan, ROC. Tel./fax +886 4 24730022x1792. E-mail address: kcy@csmu.edu.tw (C.-Y. Kuo). 0048-9697/$ – see front matter. Crown Copyright © 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2008.04.018 available at www.sciencedirect.com www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv