Area and personal exposure measurements during asbestos abatement of a crawl space and boiler room

Our plain-English summary of Area and personal exposure measurements during asbestos abatement of a crawl space and boiler room, by J.H. Lange, M. Wang, A. Buja, et al (Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, 2005).

The study

• Authors: J.H. Lange, M. Wang, A. Buja, G. Mastrangelo
• Journal: Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology
• Published: 2005;74(2):388-90
• Cited by: 1 article, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This short report described air measurements during asbestos abatement (removal) of a crawl space and boiler room. The site and sampling-methods description is missing from the text, so the location, dates, material, fiber type and number of workers are unknown. The authors compared area air samples with personal air samples. They found no statistical difference between the two (printed as p less than 0.83). They reported that personal exposure did not appear to exceed the OSHA permissible exposure limit (PEL) of 0.1 fibers per cubic centimeter as a time-weighted average (f/cc-TWA), but that an over-exposure was possible. The authors concluded that engineering controls kept average exposure at the PEL. Over a 45-year working life, they calculated cumulative exposures of 1.35 f/cc/lifetime using the geometric mean (about 0.03 f/cc) and 4.5 using another mean estimate (about 0.1 f/cc). Both are below a presumed disease threshold of 5 that they cited from earlier work. Applying other researchers' risk figures to the 4.5 estimate, they estimated lung cancer risk could rise 4.5% and mesothelioma risk by 0.00045% to 0.0054%.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Workplace air-sampling study comparing area and personal asbestos measurements during an abatement job (sampling-methods description not available in the text)
• Who was studied: Personal and area air samples collected during abatement of a crawl space and boiler room. The available text does not give the number of workers, the location or the dates, and the sample counts in the table are scrambled by OCR.
• Exposure: Airborne asbestos fibers during abatement of a crawl space and boiler room, measured as fibers per cubic centimeter time-weighted average (f/cc-TWA). The available text does not state the fiber type or the material.
• Main results:
  • No statistical difference was found between area and personal samples (printed as p less than 0.83). The authors took this to suggest that both methods sampled the same airborne fibers.
  • A t-test result of 0.07 (p greater than 0.90) suggested that personal exposure did not exceed the OSHA PEL of 0.1 f/cc-TWA. The authors noted that an over-exposure was nonetheless possible.
  • Using the geometric mean (about 0.03 f/cc) over a 45-year lifetime, the cumulative exposure was 1.35 f/cc/lifetime.
  • Using the lognormal mean estimate (about 0.1 f/cc), the cumulative value was 4.5 f/cc/lifetime. This did not exceed the presumed threshold of 5 f/cc/lifetime that the authors cited from earlier work.
  • The authors applied risk estimates from other published studies (Boffetta; Selikoff; Finkelstein) to the 4.5 f/cc/lifetime cumulative exposure. On that basis, they estimated that lung cancer risk could rise by 4.5% and mesothelioma risk by 0.00045% to 0.0054%. These are calculated estimates, not observed disease in these workers.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that engineering controls were effective in keeping the average exposure level at the OSHA PEL.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • Although the statistical test suggested that personal exposure did not exceed the PEL, the authors stated that an over-exposure was possible.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Abatement.

Related studies

• Personal exposure during abatement of various asbestos-containing materials in the same work area — J.H. Lange, K.W. Thomulka, et al. (2005)
• Personal airborne asbestos exposure levels associated with various types of abatement — J.H. Lange, K.W. Thomulka, et al. (2006)
• A study of personal and area airborne asbestos concentrations during asbestos abatement: a statistical evaluation of fibre concentration data — J.H. Lange, P.R. Lange, et al. (1996)
• Area and personal airborne exposure during abatement of asbestos-containing roofing material — J.H. Lange, K.W. Thomulka (2000)
• Airborne exposure during asbestos abatement of floor tile, wall plaster, and pipe insulation — J.H. Lange (2005)
• Personal and static sample measurements of asbestos fibres during two abatement projects — A. Dufresne, C. Dion, et al. (2009)

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