SIGNIFICANCE OF CONCENTRATION VARIATIONS OF MICROBIAL AEROSOLS WITHINDOMESTIC DWELLINGS

Fungus spore grows quickly and easier at high relative humidity and te mperature in Taiwan, a subtropical country. Aspergillus, Cladosporium, and Penicillium are observed to be the predominant genera in this reg ion. The variation of spore concentrations with time indoors and outdo ors can be a problem of considerable difficulty for evaluating the rel ationship between fungus exposure and health effects. In this investig ation, the hourly and daily concentration variations of the predominan t fungus genus were evaluated in three residential environments in the Taipei area. It was demonstrated that hourly and daily concentration variations of indoor and outdoor fungi were remarkable and the pattern s of concentration variations varied from dwelling to dwelling. In add ition, the coefficients of variation for sequential and parallel dupli cates of Aspergillus, Cladosporium, Penicillium, and yeast varied from 20% to 100%, which were larger than those observed from the commonly used methods for sampling dust and chemicals. Moreover, no significant differences for the samples taken in the morning and afternoon were o bserved.