Personal Exposure to TSP, Chromium, and Lead in a Road in Bogotá, Colombia

Exposure to air pollutants from mobile sources is a daily situation in Latin American countries. Diesel, roads in bad condition and poor planning of the road network, generates that informal workers, pedestrians and people who use the bicycle paths, are exposed to air pollutants that affect their health. In order to quantify the concentrations of total suspended particulate (TSP), lead, and chromium, a monitoring of these pollutants was carried out at a fixed point adjacent to a three-lane high-flow vehicular road in Bogotá, Colombia, using personal exposure pumps for 14 h a day, for a period of 20 days. The concentrations for TSP and chromium exceed the daily (120 µg/m3) and annual (0.25 ng/m3) values suggested by the World Health Organization (WHO). For lead, the concentrations comply with the suggested annual value of WHO (0.5 µg/m3). It is concluded that informal workers are exposed to harmful concentrations of air pollutants, in acute and chronic periods of exposure, while for pedestrians and cyclists there is an unquantifiable risk, due to the exposure periods, which is why establishing the values of exposure in this population is of vital importance based on the findings of the present study.