Implementation of smoking ban: a survey in a public hospital setting.

Smoking in hospitals is banned in most of European countries; nevertheless, implementing a total smoking ban is particularly difficult and policy breaches are frequent. Aim of our study was to monitor the compliance with the smoke-free policy within a hospital district by measuring particulate matters (PM2.5).

Short-term monitoring of benzene air concentration in an urban area: a preliminary study of application of Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric test to assess pollutant impact on global environment and indoor.

In step with the need to develop statistical procedures to manage small-size environmental samples, in this work we have used concentration values of benzene (C6H6), concurrently detected by seven outdoor and indoor monitoring stations over 12 000 minutes, in order to assess the representativeness of collected data and the impact of the pollutant on indoor environment. Clearly, the former issue is strictly connected to sampling-site geometry, which proves critical to correctly retrieving information from analysis of pollutants of sanitary interest. Therefore, according to current criteria for network-planning, single stations have been interpreted as nodes of a set of adjoining triangles; then, a) node pairs have been taken into account in order to estimate pollutant stationarity on triangle sides, as well as b) node triplets, to statistically associate data from air-monitoring with the corresponding territory area, and c) node sextuplets, to assess the impact probability of the outdoor pollutant on indoor environment for each area.

A three year study on 14 VOCs at one site in Rome: levels, seasonal variations, indoor/outdoor ratio and temporal trends.

Fourteen volatile organic compounds (VOCs)-twelve hydrocarbons and two organochlorine compounds-were monitored both outdoors and indoors for three years at one site in Rome. Results showed that 118 out of 168 indoor seasonal mean values were higher than the corresponding outdoor concentrations. The most relevant source of outdoor hydrocarbons was automotive exhaust emissions.

Correction: Fuselli, et al. A Three Year Study on 14 VOCs at One Site in Rome: Levels, Seasonal Variations, Indoor / Outdoor Ratio and Temporal Trends. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2010, 7, 3792-3803.

[This corrects the article on p. 3792 in vol. 7.

Investigation of indoor air volatile organic compounds concentration levels in dental settings and some related methodological issues.

The assessment of indoor air volatile organic compounds (VOCs) concentration levels in dental settings has a big health relevance for the potentially massive occupational exposure to a lot of diverse contaminants. The comparison of the VOCs profile relative to indoor conditions and to the corresponding outdoor concentrations, as well as the discovery of possible correlations between specific dental activities and VOCs concentration variations are of utmost importance for offering a reliable characterization of risk for dentists and dental staff health. In this study we review the most relevant environmental studies addressing the VOCs contamination level in dental settings.

PCB, PCDD and PCDF contamination of food of animal origin as the effect of soil pollution and the cause of human exposure in Brescia.

In Brescia a PCB production plant polluted soil and forage of the surrounding fields and caused a significant contamination of meat and milk of the cattle fed with local forage. This in turn induced elevated blood levels of PCDDs, PCDFs and PCBs in the consumers. The contamination levels and profiles measured in the perirenal fat, in the liver and in the milk of the overall 28 contaminated bovines are reported.

[Formaldehyde in air of indoor and outdoor environments of urban area, relationships man's exposure].

This study presents the results of man's exposure to formaldehyde, carried out in indoor and outdoor environments in the city of Ferrara. The processes were obtained on average concentration measurements carried out for one month by indoor, outdoor and personal samplings. Concentration values obtained by personal samplings (PE) were compared to both outdoor and indoor values, the latter including domestic and working environments.

[Seasonal trends of some volatile organic compounds inside and outside private apartments located in areas characterized by different vehicular traffic intensity of Rome].

This study was aimed at determining volatile organic compounds concentrations in indoor and outdoor sites located in Rome characterized by different traffic intensity. Indoor and outdoor air passive samplings were effected in private locations during four seasonal periods. In all sites about 50 pollutants were determined qualitatively and benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes were determined quantitatively.