title: Modeling emissions from CAFO poultry farms in Poland and evaluating potential risk to surrounding populations.
abstract: The world-wide use of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) for livestock production demands the need to evaluate the potential impact to public health. We estimated the exposure of various airborne pollutants for populations residing in close proximity to 10 poultry CAFOs located in Central Poland. Ammonia (NH3), carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen sulfide (H2S), methane (CH4), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and organic dust were the pollutants of interest for this study. Because no monitoring data were available, we used the steady-state Gaussian dispersion model AERMOD to estimate pollutant concentrations for the exposed population in order to calculate the hazard index (HI) for a combined mixture of chemicals. Our results indicate that while the levels of certain pollutants are expected to exceed background levels commonly found in the environment they did not result in calculated hazard indexes which exceeded unity suggesting low potential for adverse health effects for the surrounding community for the mixture of chemicals. The study was conducted through a cooperation between the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) in the USA and the Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine (NIOM) in Poland.
authors.affiliation: Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, US Department of Health and Human Services, Atlanta, GA, USA. Electronic address: hpohl@cdc.gov.
authors.forename: H R
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Pohl
authors.affiliation: SRC, Inc., North Syracuse, NY, USA.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Citra
authors.affiliation: Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, US Department of Health and Human Services, Atlanta, GA, USA.
authors.forename: H A
authors.initials: HA
authors.lastname: Abadin
authors.affiliation: Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine, Łódź, Poland.
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Szadkowska-Stańczyk
authors.affiliation: Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine, Łódź, Poland.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kozajda
authors.affiliation: SRC, Inc., North Syracuse, NY, USA.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ingerman
authors.affiliation: SRC, Inc., North Syracuse, NY, USA.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nguyen
authors.affiliation: Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, US Department of Health and Human Services, Atlanta, GA, USA.
authors.forename: H E
authors.initials: HE
authors.lastname: Murray
mesh_terms: D000821:Animal Feed; D000818:Animals; D004781:Environmental Exposure / Q000009:adverse effects*; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D004785:Environmental Pollutants / Q000009:adverse effects*; D000072480:Farms; D015386:Hazardous Substances / Q000009:adverse effects*; D006801:Humans; D015233:Models, Statistical; D011044:Poland; D011200:Poultry; D011634:Public Health; D018570:Risk Assessment
chemical_list: D004785:Environmental Pollutants; D015386:Hazardous Substances
keywords: Air pollution; Animal feeding operations; Emissions modeling; Mixtures evaluation