高生物氣膠暴露職場之真菌及細菌特性調查

Various occupational environments have high bioaerosol exposure, such as poultry farms, composting facilities, etc. Exposure to high levels of bioaerosols at workplace is a significant occupational health issue, which might result in respiratory infections, decreased lung function and allergies of the workers. Therefore, we investigated occupational settings with high bioaerosol levels to evaluate the exposure of workers. Five kinds of important occupational settings were investigated, including florists, chicken farms, mushroom farms, vegetable fields, and composting facilities. Area samplings of airborne fungi and bacteria were performed using the IOM sampler with polycarbonate filters and Andersen N6 sampler at the main work sites of the workers. Other environmental factors were monitored using direct-reading instruments. According to the results, the ranges of average bioaerosol levels of all workplaces were: culturable bacteria 279~5.58×105CFU/m^3, culturable fungi 428~5,132CFU/m^3, endotoxin 15~2,343EU/m3, total fungal spores 2,134~4.60×10^5spores/m^3, and total bacteria 5.69×10^4~1.27×10^6cells/m^3. Overall, chicken farms had the highest bioaerosol levels. The concentrations of bioaerosols had significant variation at different occupational settings. In this study, the bioaerosol concentrations were high in all of the study occupational settings. Thus it is important to reduce bioaerosol exposure of the workers through environmental control and proper use of personal protection equipment.