Asbestos concentrations in public buildings - a preliminary report

Our plain-English summary of Asbestos concentrations in public buildings - a preliminary report, by J.M. le Guen, G. Burdett (The Annals of Occupational Hygiene, 1981).

The study

• Authors: J.M. le Guen, G. Burdett
• Journal: The Annals of Occupational Hygiene
• Published: 1981;24(2):185-9
• Cited by: 7 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher
• In J-M's library: Johns-Manville's company medical library held a copy (J-M no. 004670).

Abstract

Airborne asbestos concentrations were measured by a variety of sampling and analytical techniques, in 4 schools, 2 other educational establishments, 5 houses, a theatre and a television studio, in all of which asbestos-containing construction materials had been used. At some sites these materials had been damaged to expose visible fibres, but in no case did airborne asbestos concentrations exceed 10-8 g/m3 roughly 0.02 % of the occupational hygiene standard for chrysotile, or 10-9 g/m3 in the three cases where the TEM was used.

PubMed has no abstract for this study. This is the authors' abstract, copied from the article.

In plain English

This preliminary report described air sampling from November 1978 to March 1980 in 4 schools, 2 other educational establishments, 5 houses, a theatre and a television studio where asbestos-containing construction materials, including chrysotile, amosite and crocidolite, had been used. At some sites these were damaged, exposing visible fibres. Methods included optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and, at three sites, transmission electron microscopy (TEM). No optical count exceeded the detection limit of 0.01 fibre per ml, and all X-ray diffraction results were below detection. By SEM, airborne asbestos was no higher than about 10 to the minus 8 grams per cubic metre, which the authors put at about 0.02% of the occupational standard for chrysotile or amosite, or about 0.2% for crocidolite. By TEM, the three sites did not exceed 10 to the minus 9 grams per cubic metre. Fine fibres too small for optical microscopy, numerous in some samples, were more than 95% organic, not asbestos. The authors concluded that all samples showed low asbestos levels and that the health significance of the remaining fine asbestos fibres was uncertain.

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: Preliminary report of an air-sampling survey of buildings containing asbestos materials. Several measurement methods were compared: phase contrast optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy.
• Who was studied: Buildings, not people. There were 4 schools, 2 other educational institutions, 3 houses on a private estate, 2 council houses, a television studio and a theatre, labelled as sites A to I. They were surveyed by the Health and Safety Executive with the Department of the Environment between November 1978 and March 1980.
• Exposure: Airborne asbestos in buildings with asbestos-containing construction materials, some of them damaged. The materials included sprayed chrysotile and amosite, chrysotile lagging and panels, sprayed crocidolite, amosite-based insulation, insulation board with about 2% crocidolite, and asbestos-based wall and ceiling board.
• Main results:
  • Optical (phase contrast) counts at all sites: no concentration exceeded the detection limit of 0.01 fibre per ml.
  • X-ray diffraction: results for all locations were below the limit of detection. That limit was about 10 to the minus 6 grams per cubic metre for chrysotile and about 2 times 10 to the minus 7 grams per cubic metre for amosite and crocidolite.
  • SEM: airborne asbestos concentrations in the buildings were no higher than the method's detection limit of about 10 to the minus 8 grams per cubic metre.
  • The authors related the SEM detection limit to occupational hygiene standards: about 0.02% of the standards for chrysotile or amosite, or about 0.2% for crocidolite.
  • TEM at sites G, H and I: concentrations did not exceed 10 to the minus 9 grams per cubic metre, about 0.02% of the hygiene standard for crocidolite.
  • Electron microscopy found very few asbestos fibres large enough to be seen by phase contrast microscopy. Some samples, particularly from a private house, held large numbers of finer fibres, and more than 95% of these were organic material, not asbestos.
  • The authors found optical microscopy and X-ray diffraction very limited as analytical tools for samples taken in buildings.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that, although they had chosen buildings where airborne asbestos might be expected because of damaged or previously disturbed asbestos components, all of the samples showed low levels of asbestos contamination.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • Phase contrast optical microscopy cannot tell asbestos from other fibres and cannot see fibres thinner than about 0.3 micrometres.
  • When identifying very thin fibres, the SEM system with X-ray analysis is very limited compared with an analytical TEM.
  • Laboratory contamination levels and counting procedures prevent pushing detection limits lower.
  • Comparisons with workplace hygiene standards are approximate. They rest on a rule-of-thumb conversion between fibre counts and mass concentrations.
  • The health significance of the remaining very fine asbestos fibres is uncertain.

Topics

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

Related studies

• Mass concentrations of airborne asbestos in the non-occupational environment--a preliminary report of U.K. measurements — G.J. Burdett, J.M. le Guen, et al. (1984)
• Airborne asbestos in public buildings — J. Chesson, J. Hatfield, et al. (1990)
• Airborne asbestos concentrations in buildings — G.J. Burdett, S.A. Jaffrey (1986)
• Extreme airborne asbestos concentrations in a public building — E. Ganor, A. Fischbein, et al. (1992)
• Evaluation of ambient asbestos concentrations in buildings following the Loma Prieta earthquake — D.R. van Orden, R.J. Lee, et al. (1995)
• Worker exposure to asbestos during removal of sprayed material and renovation activity in buildings containing sprayed material — N.W. Paik, R.J. Walcott, et al. (1983)

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