Sensitive Individuals are Highly Susceptible to Airborne Particles
“Part of the explanation for the persistent epidemiological findings of associations between mortality and morbidity with relatively modest ambient exposures to airborne particles may be that some people are much more susceptible to particle-induced responses than others,” write Professor Dale Hattis of Clark University, and coauthors, in a recent article in the journal Risk Analysis.
This study relied on an analysis of studies of human systemic responses to dust and other agents that induce acute changes in lung function to quantitively explore interindividual variability in breathing rates and deposition to the deep lung.
The study found that 99.9th percentile individuals respond to doses of particles 150 to 450 times smaller than are needed to affect average people.
Hattis D, Russ A, Goble R, Banati P, Chu M., Human Interindividual Variability in Susceptibility to Airborne Particles. Risk Analysis, Vol. 4,, pp. 585-599, August, 2001.
The entire article is available online.
