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Pollution inside the home: descriptive analyses Volume 8, issue 6, Novembre-Décembre 2009

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Agence française de sécurité sanitaire de l’environnement et du travail (Afsset) 253, avenue Général Leclerc 94700 Maisons Alfort, Union des caisses nationales de sécurité sociale, 18 avenue Léon Gaumont 75980 Paris

Between October 2003 and December 2005, the Indoor Air Quality Observatory (OQAI) conducted a survey to measure air quality in a sample of 567 French homes designed to be representative of all primary residences in continental France. Thirty physical, chemical and biological pollutants were measured: 20 volatile organic compounds (VOCs), carbon monoxide (CO), particulate matter (PM 10 and PM 2.5), cat, dog and dust mite allergens, gamma radiation and radon, as well as relative humidity. The overall aim of this work is to describe air quality in homes by considering simultaneously the entire set of pollutants measured during the study. In Part I, presented here, we studied the correlation scores between the pollutants measured in each home. This analysis of the pollutants is based on Spearman’s coefficient correlation (ranking correlation) and on various multi-dimensional statistical methods. This analysis identified four VOC groups positively correlated with each other and corresponding ultimately to chemical families. These groups are described below in decreasing order of correlation scores within and between the groups: the aromatic hydrocarbons, including o-xylene, m-xylene, p-xylene and ethylbenzene, with correlation scores greater than 0.92, together with toluene (0.72), benzene and 124-trimethylbenzene (0.6), and styrene (0.5); the aliphatic hydrocarbons n-decane and n-undecane, correlated with one another by a score of 0.8 and linked to the first group with correlation scores of around 0.6; the aldehydes: formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, hexaldehyde and acrolein, correlated to each other with a score of 0.5; the two halogenated hydrocarbons, trichlorethylene and tetrachlorethylene, correlated with a score of 0.4. The correlation scores between the VOCs and other pollutants, as well as between the other pollutants themselves, are low in absolute terms.