Dustborne fungi in large office buildings
Author:
Hsing Jasmine Chao, Donald K. Milton, Joel Schwartz & Harriet A. Burge
Date: 22 May 2002
Abstract:
Fungi are ubiquitous in our daily environments. However, their effects on office workers’ health are of greatinterest to many environmental health researchers. Dust has been considered an important reservoir of indoor fungifrom which aerosolization and exposure could occur. We have examined the characteristics of dustborne fungalpopulations recovered from floors and chairs in office buildings. We investigated twenty-one offices in four officebuildings in Boston, MA over a year beginning May 1997.We conducted intensive environmental sampling everysix weeks to measure culturable dustborne fungi from floors and chairs, surface dust levels and water activity incarpeting. Carbon dioxide, temperature, and relative humidity were monitored continuously. Concentrations oftotal dustborne fungi recovered from floors were positively related to carbon dioxide (β = 0.00064; p-value =0.0002) and temperatures between 20 and 22.5 °C (p-value = 0.0026). Also, total fungal concentrations in floorsgradually increased over the year (p-value = 0.0028). Total fungi recovered from chairs varied significantly byseason (p-value < 0.0001), highest in September and lowest in March, and were positively correlated with dustloads in floors (β = 0.25; p-value < 0.0001). We used principal component analysis (PCA) to reduce variousobserved fungal species to fewer factors. Six groups (PCA factors) were obtained for dustborne fungi recoveredfrom both floors and chairs. The models of the first PCA factors for both floors and chairs were similar to those fortotal fungal concentrations. The results of this study provide essential information to further evaluate the effects ofdustborne fungi on office workers’ health.
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