Health exposure of users of indoor sports centers related to the physico-chemical properties of particulate matter
Introduction
Sports enthusiasts, especially residents of large cities, trying to avoid contaminated urban air usually choose fitness centers, gyms, sports halls, etc., for exercising. Often, they are not aware of the worse air quality inside sports facilities than outside [1,2]. Indoor air quality (IAQ) in sports facilities depends on many factors. The most important are the following:
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indoor and outdoor (atmospheric) air temperature and humidity;
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concentration of selected pollution in indoor and outdoor air (e.g., particulate matter (PM), bioaerozols, carbon dioxide (CO2), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and gaseous precursors of PM);
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room volume and ventilation parameters [3].
Ambient air temperature is the most perceptible parameter and provides thermal comfort for facility users. An indoor sports center should be kept at a temperature that ensures heat dissipation without creating negative impressions, e.g., cold or hot. The appropriate temperature can be ensured by technical means: air conditioning, ventilators, roofs, or wall insulating or shielding heat sources; reducing heat gains through windows or skylights using reflective films or blinds; and venting hot exhaust gases outside the sports space [4]. According to the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), relative air humidity should be within 25%–60%, and ambient air temperature in the range of 24.5–28 °C; the dynamics of its changes should not be higher than 20% per hour [1]. Low air temperature and increased humidity may cause the ambient air to feel stale and stuffy, while high temperature reduces the amount of heat given away by the body. Moreover, low humidity of ambient air can cause drying of the mucous membranes of the upper respiratory tract and resuspension of dust settled on the floor or surfaces of various objects. High humidity can lead to mold and building damage [5].
The most important air pollutant with regard to its adverse impact on human health is particulate matter (PM). The impact of PM on human health is determined by its physical (size and shape, surface, electric charge of dust particles, hygroscopicity, and properties related to light scattering and absorption) and chemical properties (elemental composition, the presence of inorganic ions, organic compounds, and elemental carbon) [6,7]. The size of dust particles in indoor spaces like sports halls, similar to atmospheric air, ranges from nanometers to millimeters [8]. Due to the different ability of PM particles to move and the deposition in the respiratory tract, the assessment of health exposure to PM is divided into three fractions [6,7]:
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inhalation fraction—particles with an aerodynamic diameter (da) ≤100 μm (total suspended particles, TSP) that do not get into the alveoli, usually stopped in the upper respiratory tract;
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tracheal fraction—particles with da < 30 μm, which pass through the trachea during breathing;
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respirable fraction—particles with da < 4 μm, which during breathing can be deposited in alveoli and dissolved in physiological fluids.
Due to the characteristics of the most commonly used measuring devices for PM in atmospheric air, it is customary for PM to be divided into fine (PM2.5) and coarse (2.5-10) particles. The most frequently studied sub-fraction of PM2.5 is the submicron fraction (PM1). PM is an important health exposure factor for people practicing sports due to three reasons. First of all, PM particles settling on the walls of alveoli may cause difficulty in gas exchange. For athletes, this means that in conditions of high concentrations of PM, they will tire faster and the efficiency of their body will be reduced by up to 3%–5% [9]. It may also affect the results, and particularly in the case of high-ranking sports competitions, it may also impact the final outcome [10,11]. Secondly, during intense training, most of the air enters the body directly through the mouth, thus bypassing the natural filtration mechanisms in the upper parts of the respiratory system—the nose, where most of the particles larger than 2 μm are retained [12,13]. Thirdly, during physical effort, the body's need for oxygen increases by almost 3 times, which is associated with increased lung ventilation. After starting training, there is a 2–3-fold increase in minute lung ventilation (VE) and deepening of the breath [14]. If the demand for oxygen is even greater, the respiration frequency also increases. As a result, not only smaller than 2 μm, but also larger particles are transferred to the deeper areas of the respiratory system, i.e., to the tracheobronchial part or to the lungs [[14], [15], [16]]. Increased breathing intensity occurs in people who train regularly, and not only during training. The minute tidal volume for people practicing sports is greater than for people who do not practice; therefore, the need for oxygen in physically active people is higher than for an average person. This means that in all conditions, those people who train regularly are exposed to the deposition of more PM and its components into the body than people who do not engage in sports regularly [11,17].
Despite the high importance of air quality in sports facilities, a query of the literature on the subject indicates that there is a lack of research devoted to the comprehensive assessment of PM properties in the indoor air of sports facilities [18]. Research into this category of facilities has been the subject of only a small number of publications, which specifically focus on measurements of mass and number concentrations of PM in hockey arenas [19], ice rinks [20], gyms [11,21,22], climbing rooms [23], and sports halls [24]. Some of them also concern the concentrations of the selected gaseous pollutants (e.g., SO2, CO, CO2, NO, NO2, and VOC) [1,[25], [26], [27]]. There are only a select few publications on the chemical composition of PM in sports facilities (Fig. 1) [[28], [29], [30], [31], [32]] or on the health exposure of athletes [[33], [34], [35]].
This is the first study that focuses on the short- (daily) and long-term (seasonal) variability of the mass concentrations and chemical composition of size-resolved PM in a closed sports center. More specifically, the work presents the differences in:
- i)
the mass concentrations of five PM fractions (PM1, PM2.5, PM4, PM10, TSP),
- ii)
the mass concentrations of PM4-and TSP-bound metals and PAHs,
- iii)
PM mass size distribution,
- iv)
PM origin,
- v)
health exposure to PM-bound metals and PAHs for three groups of users (pupils aged 8–18 years, trainers and athletes aged 21–40 years),
inside and outside the selected sports center in various measurement periods.
Section snippets
Sampling site
A sports center, OSiR Targówek,1 located inside a typically urban area in the Targówek district in Warsaw, Poland (52◦16′19 N, 21◦02′42 E) was selected for the study (Fig. 2). OSiR Targówek is a two-story, multifunctional building that allows training in many sports, such as handball, basketball, football, volleyball, table tennis, and so on. On the ground floor is a sports hall with a parquet floor
PM concentration and mass size distribution
During the non-heating season, ranges of 8 h concentrations of PM1 and PM2.5 inside and outside the hall were similar (I: 8–174 μg/m3; O: 3–174 μg/m3) (Fig. 4). The same applies to PM4 (I:9–179 μg/m3; O: 3–174 μg/m3). The range of indoor and outdoor concentrations were different for PM10 and TSP; inside the hall, the maximum concentrations reached 215 μg/m3 for PM10 and 380 μg/m3 for TSP, and outside reached 180 μg/m3 for PM10 and 190 μg/m3 for TSP. In the heating
Conclusions
The research into concentrations of PM inside and outside of the selected sports center in Warsaw provides the following conclusions:
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Concentrations of PM1, PM2.5, PM4, PM10 and TSP in the non-heating season are higher inside (on average from 29 for PM1 to 62 μg/m3 for TSP) the sports hall than in its surroundings (on average from 22 for PM1 to 32 μg/m3 for TSP), while in the heating season the opposite (indoor – on average from 38 for PM1 to 56 μg/m3 for TSP; outdoor – on average from 52 for PM1
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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