Study of personal exposure to airborne respirable particles and carbon monoxide

Simultaneous measurements of CO and respirable particles (RP) at outdoor network stations and of personal exposure in a sample of twelve volunteers were carried out during the winter and summer season of 1980/81 in order to evaluate how well personal exposure can be assessed from outdoor network station data.The results have shown that personal exposure of our subjects to both CO and RP is in best correlation with exposure at home where subjects spend in the average nearly 70% of their time. While personal exposure to CO can hardly be related to outdoor CO levels, personal exposure to RP is in fair agreement with simultaneously measured outdoor concentrations in winter (but not in summer). A large intercept on WAE axis of the WAE/RP relationship indicates that a considerable part of personal exposure to RP should be attributed to particles which are not of indoor origin. This part does not follow the seasonal and day-to-day changes in outdoor RP concentration and causes a negative, but highly significant correlation between WAE/RP ratio and RP.