title: Arsenic levels from different land-use settings in Pakistan: Bio-accumulation and estimation of potential human health risk via dust exposure.
abstract: The present study aims at assessing arsenic (As) levels in outdoor dust and human exposure risks at different land use setting (i.e., rural, industrial, urban) from Punjab, Pakistan. The results showed higher As concentrations (mg/kg) in all the sample types ( i.e., dust, hair and nail) collected from industrial sites (9.78, 2.36, 2.5) followed by urban (7.59, 0.38, 0.88) and rural sites (6.95, 0.52, 1.12), respectively. In the current study, we also carried out human risk assessment via contaminated dust exposure, which suggested that dust ingestion is the major route of As contamination for the associated population, followed by the inhalation and dermal contact, at all studied land use settings. Hazard Index (HI) calculated for non-carcinogenic health risks for adults showed higher values at industrial (0.65) and urban (0.53) sites, which reflected that dust exposure is the major contributing source of human arsenic burden and may pose several adverse health effects. Carcinogenic risk values showed that at industrial areas the risk of carcinogenesis to the associated population is mainly due to As contaminated dust exposure. Hair (60%) and nail samples (70%) collected from industrial land use were found above the WHO threshold limit of 1mg/kg, suggested high risks for human health in the studied area. The results of the present study would be useful for assessing the human health risks due to arsenic contamination via dust exposure in different parts of country.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, University of Sargodha, Sargodha, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Marghoob
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Subhani
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, University of Sargodha, Sargodha, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Irfan
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Mustafa
authors.affiliation: Key Lab of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, PR China.
authors.forename: Ambreen
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Alamdar
authors.affiliation: Aristotle University, Department of Chemistry, Division of Chemical Technology, Box 116, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece.
authors.forename: Ioannis A
authors.initials: IA
authors.lastname: Katsoyiannis
authors.affiliation: Center of Excellence in Environmental Studies, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Nadeem
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ali
authors.affiliation: Key Lab of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, PR China.
authors.forename: Qingyu
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Key Lab of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, PR China.
authors.forename: Siyuan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.affiliation: Key Lab of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, PR China. Electronic address: hqshen@iue.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Heqing
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.affiliation: Public Health and Environment Division, Department of Biosciences, COMSAT Institute of Information and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan. Electronic address: ali_ebl2@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Syed Ali Musstjab Akber Shah
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Eqani
mesh_terms: D001151:Arsenic / Q000032:analysis* / Q000633:toxicity*; D002273:Carcinogens / Q000633:toxicity; D004391:Dust / Q000032:analysis*; D004781:Environmental Exposure; D006197:Hair / Q000737:chemistry; D006801:Humans; D007221:Industry; D009262:Nails / Q000737:chemistry; D010154:Pakistan; D018570:Risk Assessment
chemical_list: D002273:Carcinogens; D004391:Dust; D001151:Arsenic
keywords: Arsenic; Dust; Hair; Hazard index; Nails; Pakistan