Symposium ´Urban Air Pollution in Russia´

Abstract

Request for single articles

261 KB  Full paper 10 downloads since January 2004

Goal, Scope, Background. This research estimates the impact of benzene concentrations in urban air on the risk of excess lifetime cancer mortality.

Methods. Ambient air monitoring data from 1993 for benzene collected from five major Russian urban areas (Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Samara, and Nizhi Novogorod) are used to assess the risk of cancer deaths attributable to exposure to ambient benzene concentrations. Two values of unit risk (2.2 × 10–6 and 7.8 × 10–6 per µg/m3) are used to bound the mean mortality values estimated.

Results and Discussion. The analysis indicates that elevated atmospheric concentrations of benzene may cause premature cancer deaths in Russian urban areas. Cancer risk varies widely among the Russian urban areas included in this study, with values ranging from 9.0 ×10–5 (lowest) to 1.2 × 10–3 (highest) for unit risk of 2.2 × 10–6 and from 3.0 × 10–4 (lowest) to 4.4 × 10–3 (highest) for unit risk of 7.8 × 10–6. Exposure to benzene in urban air is estimated to cause approximately 114 to 405 cancer-related deaths per year in the five towns included in this study.

Conclusions. The results of this analysis underscore the importance of reducing exposure to ambient benzene concentrations in Russia"s urban populations. Health policy issues center around designing and implementing emissions limits to manage the concomitant risks to the health of Russia"s urban populations.