Résumé :
|
Benzene is among the gasoline components and is airborne by vehicular traffic. It is a myelotoxic and leukaemia-inducing compound. All the estimates deal with exposure, not with environmental concentration. Since the two parameters can be not coincident, the citizens'risk level, which depends on actual exposure, can not be simply estimated by means of urban pollution. Therefore, once a socially acceptable exposure risk level is stated by a political decision, one can set a limiting value for benzene concentration in urban air only if the relationship between personal exposure and urban pollution is known. We find the citizens'exposure level, whatever their occupation or the fraction of time spent outdoors, is higher than urban average level and is equal, on average in Europe, to twice its value. To establish this relationship, six towns and a sample of their citizens and their homes have undergone environmental monitoring for an entire year. The towns were distributed among the Northern, Central and Southern European countries, comprising a wide range of different lifestyles, climates and development features. (Ce texte est paru dans Newsletter 2001, n°27).
|