Abstract
In Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, coal combustion in the ger area is the main source of indoor and ambient air pollution that contributes significantly to residents’ health. It was critical to characterize personal exposure to PM2.5 to help prevent adverse health effects from indoor coal burning. This study compared personal exposure to PM2.5 between ger and apartment residents and evaluated the influence of time-activity patterns. Two-day personal exposure of 16 couples from gers and 16 couples from apartments in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, was measured in January and February 2019. A portable monitor (ASLUNG, Rododo Science, Taipei, Taiwan) was used to measure real-time personal PM2.5 exposure, and information on participants’ time-activity patterns was recorded in a logbook. Ger residents were exposed to a significantly higher PM2.5 concentration (59.1(1.7) μg/m3) than apartment residents (26.8(2.0) μg/m3). However, the personal exposure of couples in gers and apartments was not affected by the time-activity pattern. The ambient PM2.5 concentration was higher than the personal PM2.5 exposure of ger and apartment residents. Daily personal PM2.5 exposure profiles of all residents showed a sharp increase at 8:00 a.m. and a decrease after dawn. For all residents, the largest personal PM2.5 exposure was at home. National measures to reduce ambient PM2.5 concentrations are necessary for the reduction of personal PM2.5 exposures of Ulaanbaatar residents.
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Data availability
All original data used in this study are freely available upon request.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the time and effort of all participants in this study.
Funding
This research was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Korea Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (NRF-2017R1A2B4006468) and the BK21 plus (NRF-5199990214126).
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Donghyun Kim: Data curation; Formal analysis; Visualization; Writing, original draft. Hyerin Shin: Data curation; Formal analysis; Investigation; Writing, original draft. Sooyong Guak: Data curation; Formal analysis; Visualization; Writing, review and editing. Jargalsaikhan Galsuren: Investigation. Davaalkham Dambadarjaa: Investigation. Kiyoung Lee: Conceptualization; Funding acquisition; Methodology; Project administration; Resources; Supervision; Writing, review and editing.
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All studies were conducted in accordance with principles for human experimentation as defined in the Declaration of Helsinki and International Conference on Harmonization Good Clinical Practice guidelines and approved by the institutional review board of Mongolian National University of Medical Sciences.
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Kim, D., Shin, H., Guak, S. et al. Personal PM2.5 exposures of husband and wife by residential characteristics in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Air Qual Atmos Health 14, 1849–1856 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-021-01060-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-021-01060-4