Abstract
Monitoring human exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) is a public health concern. Children are a vulnerable subgroup of the population with limited human biomonitoring data worldwide. Thus, this study aimed to measure the levels of seven PAH metabolites in urine from Brazilian children and provide risk assessment values for this exposure. Our data show naphthalene was the major contributor to children’s exposure to PAHs, with a 100% detection rate. Children in urban regions presented higher exposure to PAHs, with higher concentrations of 2-naphthol in the southeast (1.09 ng/mL, p < 0.05). Furthermore, the highest concentration of 2-naphthol was found in older children (p = 0.02), suggesting a possible difference in dietary habits. Exposure to the carbaryl insecticide is suggested based on the high concentrations of 1-naphthol (1.29 ng/mL) and considering the ratio 1-naphthol/2-naphthol (1.78). Moreover, the positive correlation between the metabolites of fluorine and pyrene also suggests exposure to PAHs by petrol combustion. The risk assessment of the PAH exposure was evaluated using the estimated daily intake (EDI) for two naphthalene metabolites in the study with a 100% detection rate. The EDI was 14.47 ng/kg BW/day. The risk assessment to the PAH exposure revealed a non-carcinogenic risk profile, with a hazard quotient of 0.71. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to provide levels of PAHs in Brazilian children.
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Data availability
All data generated or analyzed during this study are with the corresponding author, and, if necessary, she is available for taking any question about the datasets and these can be requested by reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We thank all the children volunteers for providing the urine samples for this study.
Funding
This research was supported by Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP—process numbers 2018/24069–3, 2019/07161–6, and 2021/03633–0) and by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).
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Marilia Cristina Oliveira Souza: conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, investigation, methodology, writing—original draft.
Bruno Alves Rocha: data curation, formal analysis, writing—original draft.
João Paulo Bianchi Ximenez: data curation, formal analysis, investigation.
Paula Piccoli Devóz: resources, writing—review and editing.
Anthony Santana: writing—review and editing.
Andres Dobal Campiglia: funding acquisition, writing—review and editing.
Fernando Barbosa: conceptualization, funding acquisition, project administration, supervision, writing—review and editing.
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Souza, M.C.O., Rocha, B.A., Ximenez, J.P.B. et al. Urinary levels of monohydroxylated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in Brazilian children and health risk assessment: a human biomonitoring-based study. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 47298–47309 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-19212-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-19212-z