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Abstract
We analyzed 34,790 simultaneously collected respirable dust and quartz measurements from April 1, 2002-March 31, 2021 at 158 sites across Europe and stored within the Industrial Minerals Association-Dust Monitoring Programme (IMA-DMP) database. From the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts model we extracted 309,833 outdoor temperature, precipitation and windspeed data for the geocoded site addresses for the time period of this study, only weekdays were included. Meteorological conditions for measurement and non-measurement days were compared. Dust and quartz exposure levels were modeled with hierarchical linear mixed models with long-term time trend, temperature, precipitation and windspeed as fixed effects and mineral, site and job title as random effects.
Exposure measurements were collected over 10,863 days at 158 sites, representing 3.5% of days covered by IMA-DMP. Measurement and non-measurement days had slightly different meteorological conditions. Measurement days had slightly higher median temperature: 12.370C vs 11.060C, less median precipitation: 0.28mm v 0.31mm, and lower median outdoor wind speed: 2.13m/s vs 2.33m/s. Respirable dust concentrations decreased with increasing outdoor windspeed and precipitation (respectively 11% and 6% per 10 mm). For respirable quartz the effect was stronger (respectively 17% and 16% per 10 mm). The effect of temperature was marginal for respirable dust, but above 60C respirable quartz concentrations decreased rapidly with 50% per 100C.
Marginal differences in meteorological conditions were seen between measurements days and non-measurement days. Respirable quartz concentrations were more sensitive to meteorological conditions. Long-term changes in meteorological conditions (climate change) might affect indoor workplace respirable dust and especially respirable quartz concentrations.