Quantitative determination of trucking industry workers' exposures to diesel exhaust particles

As part of a case-control mortality study of trucking industry workers, exposures to diesel aerosol were measured among the four major presumably exposed job groups (road drivers, local drivers, dock workers, and mechanics) in the industry. Eight industrial hygiene surveys were conducted during both warm and cold weather at eight U.S. terminals and truck repair shops. A single-stage personal impactor was used to sample submicrometer-sized diesel particles on quartz fiber filters. Laboratory and field studies demonstrated that the elemental carbon content of the particles is a useful and practical marker of exposure to vehicular diesel exhaust. A thermal-optical analysis technique was used to determine the concentration of elemental carbon in the filter samples. Overall geometric mean exposures to submicrometer-sized elemental carbon ranged from 3.8 micrograms/m3 in road (long distance) drivers (N = 72) to 13.8 micrograms/m3 in dock workers (N = 75). Geometric mean background area concentrations, measured in the same cities where workers were sampled, were 2.5 micrograms/m3 on major highways (N = 21) and 1.1 micrograms/m3 in residential areas (N = 23). A factorial analysis of variance indicated that exposures in two job groups, dock workers (particularly those exposed primarily via diesel forklift trucks, introduced relatively recently) and mechanics (working in poorly ventilated shops during cold weather), were significantly higher than background concentrations and were significantly higher than the exposures in the local and road drivers. The exposures of the truck drivers could not be distinguished from background highway concentrations but were significantly higher than background concentrations in residential areas.