Poor indoor air quality is an important issue for public and occupational health worldwide. Location, air-tightness of the building, ventilation rate and resident activities play an important role on the concentration of indoor pollutants and subsequently on their effects on human health. While indoor air pollution in working environments has been widely studied, the association between specific pollutants and Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) symptoms is still not clear. The objective of this study is to explore the association between PM2.5 and BC with SBS symptoms reported by employees working in a public building in the center of Athens, Greece. Continuous indoor air quality measurements were carried out from March until May 2016 (24 h, 7 days per week), including days during a Saharan dust event in March 2016. The measurements took place in four different types of spaces, including an office, a printer room and two archiving rooms, representing both high and low exposure environments. Indoor PM2.5 and BC concentrations in the office ranged from 5.9 to 14.3 μg/m3 and 1.1–1.9 μg/m3, respectively, whereas outdoor PM2.5 and BC concentrations were in the range of 6.5–21.7 μg/m3 and 1.4–2.6 μg/m3, respectively. We observed diurnal variations in indoor/outdoor ratios of PM2.5 and BC in most rooms that were >1 during working hours, that subsequently fell to below unity after working hours. Data collected via a questionnaire to 73 employees showed that the most commonly reported SBS symptoms were irritation of the eyes, a stuffy or runny nose, headache and drowsiness. Female employees were more likely to report SBS symptoms than male employees, especially nonspecific symptoms, including “unusual tiredness or fatigue” and “feeling depressed”.@en

Poor air quality in workplaces constitutes a great concern on human health as a good fraction of our time is spent at work. In Greece, very unique workplaces are the street corner kiosks, which are freestanding boxes placed on sidewalks next to city streets and vehicular traffic, where one can find many consumer goods. As such, its employees are exposed to both outdoor and indoor air pollutants. Very few studies have examined the occupational exposure of kiosk workers to air pollutants, and thus the magnitude of this unique indoor and outdoor exposure remains unknown. The objective of this study is to investigate and compare the levels of indoor and outdoor particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5), ultrafine particles (UFPs) and black carbon (BC) in different kiosks located in Athens, Greece, in urban-traffic and urban-background environments. Continuous measurements of the above-mentioned pollutants were carried out on a 24-h basis over 7 consecutive days at three kiosks from September to October 2019. Indoor PM10 concentrations in the urban kiosk ranged from 19.0 to 44.0 μg/m3, PM2.5 values ranged from 14.0 to 33.0 μg/m3, whereas BC concentrations ranged from 1.2 to 7.0 μg/m3 and UFPs from almost 9.5 to 47.0 × 103 pt/cm3. Outdoor PM10 and PM2.5 measurements ranged from 29.0 to 59.0 μg/m3 and from 22.0 to 39.0 μg/m3, respectively. BC outdoor concentrations ranged from 1.1 to 2.2 μg/m3. The mean hazard quotient (HQ) for PM10 (4.9) and PM2.5 (4.7) among all participants was >1. The health risk of exposure to PM10 and PM2.5 was found to be at moderate hazard levels, although in some cases we observed HQ values higher than 10 due to high PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations in the kiosks. Overall our study indicates that people working at kiosks can be exposed to very high concentrations on particulate pollution depending on a number of factors including the traffic that strongly depends on location and the time of the day.@en

The authors would like to replace <14. W03.31.000 > with <N075-15-2021-574> in the acknowledgement. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.@en