Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are among the most health-relevant air pollutants. Herein, we conducted meta-analysis and experimental validation to evaluate PAHs in our surroundings and carcinogenic risks. We summarized the occurrence of PAHs in outdoors and indoors from 131 studies with 6,766 samples collected in different countries in 1989-2019. The global weighted-median concentration in outdoor air, indoor air and dust of ΣPAHs were 142 ng/m³, 369 ng/m³ and 10,201 ng/g; respectively. ΣPAHs have decreased in indoor air but remained steady in outdoor air and indoor dust. More carcinogenic PAHs in indoor/outdoor air was observed in Asia, while in dust was North America. Monto-Carlo simulation further showed indoor sources for children’s exposure from dust and air can exceed outdoor. To further validate the health effect of PAHs from indoors, 15 more recent indoor dust samples were collected to examine their mutagenicity. The results showed that ΣPAHs were found to be significantly correlated with mutagenicity potency in the dust sample metabolically activated with liver S9 subcellular fraction and likely accounted for 0.42-0.50 of the mutagenic activity. Our findings indicated that PAHs are still likely to have carcinogenic activity in indoor environments and exposure risk of children to indoor dust should be emphasized.

多环芳烃（PAH）是与健康最相关的空气污染物之一。在此，我们进行了荟萃分析和实验验证，以评估环境中的PAHs和致癌风险。我们总结了1989-2019年在131个研究中在不同国家/地区收集的6,766个样本中室外和室内PAHs的发生情况。在室外空气，ΣPAHs的室内空气和灰尘全局加权平均浓度分别为142毫微克/米³，369纳克/米³和10,201 ng / g；分别。ΣPAHs在室内空气中减少，但在室外空气和室内灰尘中保持稳定。在亚洲，室内/室外空气中有更多致癌的PAHs，而在北美，则以粉尘为主。Monto-Carlo模拟进一步表明，室内儿童接触灰尘和空气的来源可能超过室外。为了进一步验证室内多环芳烃对健康的影响，最近又收集了15个室内粉尘样品以检查其致突变性。结果表明，在被肝S9亚细胞部分代谢激活的灰尘样品中，发现ΣPAHs与致突变力显着相关，并且可能占诱变活性的0.42-0.50。