Environmental and biological monitoring of traffic wardens from the city of Rome

A molecular epidemiological study on Roman policemen is ongoing. The result s of a first assessment of the occupational exposure to aromatic compounds of 66 subjects engaged in traffic control and of 33 office workers are pres ented in this paper. Passive personal samplers and urinary biomarkers were used to assess exposure to benzene and polycyclic hydrocarbons during work shifts. The results obtained indicate that benzene exposure in outdoor work ers is about twice as high as in office workers (geometric mean 7.5 and 3.4 mug/m(3), respectively). The distribution of individual exposure values wa s asymmetrical and skewed toward higher values, especially among traffic wa rdens. Environmental benzene levels recorded by municipal monitoring statio ns during work shifts (geometric mean 11.2 mug/m(3)) were in the first inst ance comparable to or greater than individual exposure values. However, sev eral outlier values were observed among personal data that greatly exceeded average environmental benzene concentrations. Among the exposure biomarker s investigated, only blood benzene correlated to some extent with previous exposure to benzene, while a seasonal variation in the excretion of 1-hydro xypyrene and trans-muconic acid was observed in both study groups. In concl usion, these results suggest that outdoor work gives a greater contribution than indoor activities to benzene exposure of Roman citizens. Moreover, re latively high-level exposures can be experienced by outdoor workers, even i n the absence of large-scale pollution episodes.