Estimating Individual-Level Exposure to Airborne Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons throughout the Gestational Period Based on Personal, Indoor, and Outdoor Monitoring

Abstract

Considering that most women reported spending < 3 hr/day outdoors, most women in the study were exposed to outdoor-originating PAHs within the indoor setting. Cross-sectional, longitudinal monitoring supplemented with questionnaire data allowed development of a gestation-length model of individual-level exposure with high precision and validity. These results are generalizable to other nonsmoking pregnant women in similar exposure settings and support reduction of exposure to protect the developing fetus.