Measurement of SVOC concentrations in dust of four child welfare facilities

Semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs) have low volatility and tend to adhere to dust particles. Recently, many scientific papers show that SVOCs may have a health risk, especially affect for children. Wensing showed that infants take dust 10 times more than adults. Considering the health damages and the intake of dust, the risk of infants exposing to SVOCs might be high. Therefore, it is necessary to assess SVOCs pollution situation of the residences and children welfare facilities which are the main life space for infants. Although many results of measurements for the SVOCs concentrations of dust at residences have been reported in Japan and overseas, few of them are at children welfare facilities. In this paper, we measured SVOCs concentrations of dust at four child welfare facilities, to assess the degree of SVOCs pollution in those places.As a result, in many cases the SVOCs concentrations of dust at children welfare facilities were high compared with that of residences. Also, higher SVOCs concentrations were observed in rooms with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) flooring materials compared with that in rooms with wood-based flooring material.