| Summary: | 碩士 === 臺北醫學大學 === 公共衛生學系 === 91 === Fungal exposures have been the focus of many environmental and occupational health researchers because of the potential infectious, toxic and allergenic effects. Specific occupational environments with higher fungal levels are of special concerns. Therefore, we conducted an exposure assessment study to evaluate fungal distributions and variations at four different occupational environments and their effects on workers’ health.
We conducted two-day environmental samplings at two of each selected occupational environments, including hospitals, animal shelters, florists and restaurants. At each sampling location, we selected one to four sites to characterize the overall environmental exposures. We measured indoor and outdoor culturable fungi, and other environment factors (e.g., temperature, relative humidity, O3, NO2, CO2, particulates) in the mornings and afternoons at each sampling day. At the beginning of the sampling, a detailed questionnaire was administered to each full-time worker at the sampling site to obtain their personal information, perceptions of health and working environment.
Our findings demonstrated that fugal concentrations in florists were significantly higher than those in other occupational environments, especially during the morning loading hours. In addition, if the indoor fungal levels were lower than outdoors, higher ventilation rate might result in higher fungal concentrations. On the contrary, if the indoor fungal levels were higher than outdoors (i,e., in florists and animal shelter 1), fungal levels could be diluted by higher ventilation. In the multivariate data analysis, we found total fungal levels were associated with relative humidity, temperature and CO2 concentration. Workers’ perceptions of health were not significantly correlated with total fungal concentrations and other environmental factors. However, eye irritation was positively associated with perceived working environments.
Our study elucidates that fungal exposures are different in various occupational environments. Thus, it is of special importance to improve working environments with precautions in order to keep good occupational and environmental health.
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