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American Healthy Homes Survey: A National Study of Residential Phthalates Measured from Floor Wipes
Citation:
Hagan, N., Dan Stout, K. Bradham, P. Egeghy, P. Ashley, M. Brinkman, M. Nishioka, AND D. Cox. American Healthy Homes Survey: A National Study of Residential Phthalates Measured from Floor Wipes. Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC, CANADA, November 09 - 13, 2014.
Impact/Purpose:
The National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL) Human Exposure and Atmospheric Sciences Division (HEASD) conducts research in support of EPA mission to protect human health and the environment. HEASD research program supports Goal 1 (Clean Air) and Goal 4 (Healthy People) of EPA strategic plan. More specifically, our division conducts research to characterize the movement of pollutants from the source to contact with humans. Our multidisciplinary research program produces Methods, Measurements, and Models to identify relationships between and characterize processes that link source emissions, environmental concentrations, human exposures, and target-tissue dose. The impact of these tools is improved regulatory programs and policies for EPA.
Description:
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA), in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), conducted a survey measuring phthalates in randomly selected residential homes throughout the U.S. Multistage sampling with clustering was used to select 1131 homes, from which a subset of 500 were randomly selected for the collection of floor wipes from hard surfaces. Trained field technicians collected the samples using isopropanol wetted wipes. Samples were analyzed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) for a suite of six phthalates: butyl benzyl phthalate, di(2-ethyl hexyl) phthalate, dibutyl phthalate, diethyl phthalate, diisodecyl phthalate, and diisononyl phthalate. In general, phthalates were detected at high frequencies from all homes examined in the study. Butyl benzyl phthalate had a detection frequency of 93%, while all other phthalates were detected in 98% of the samples. Mean concentrations varied among the phthalates, but were highest for di(2-ethyl hexyl) phthalate (1400 ng/cm2) and diisononyl phthalate (356 ng/cm2). These results indicate floors have measurable concentrations of phthalates that may serve as a potential source of exposure to the homes’ occupants
