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Bioburden Exposure in Highly Contaminated Occupational Environments

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Exposure to Microbiological Agents in Indoor and Occupational Environments

Abstract

The presence of high levels of bioaerosols is frequently the result of the natural colonization of an organic substrate present in the workplace. Therefore bioaerossol composition depends of the type of setting and materials that are handled/used. Each of the components have normally health-based recommended exposure limit but workers are normally exposed to the mixture present in the bioaerosols and this can implicate different and more severe health effects than being exposed to a singular component. The purpose of this chapter is to review the microbiota and metabolites concentrations found in occupational environments with high probability to contain high microbiota load. Additionally, It also addresses the most frequently encountered fungal and bacteria species, the sampling strategy selected and the measured metabolites and tasks involving high exposure. The review focuses on 43 articles that were considered relevant to this topic (scientific studies published between 1991 and 2017). It was possible to obtain relevant data regarding the settings and tasks that involve higher exposure to bioaerosols and highlighting also the future challenges to ensure a suitable exposure assessment of the microbiota burden.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. GIAS, ESTeSL - Escola Superior de Tecnologia da Saúde de Lisboa, Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    Carla Viegas, Lenka Smajdova, Tiago Faria, Anita Quintal Gomes & Susana Viegas

  2. Centro de Investigação em Saúde Pública Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    Carla Viegas & Susana Viegas

  3. Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Faculdade de Medicina de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

    Anita Quintal Gomes

Authors
  1. Carla Viegas
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  2. Lenka Smajdova
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  3. Tiago Faria
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  4. Anita Quintal Gomes
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  5. Susana Viegas
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Correspondence to Susana Viegas .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Lisbon School of Health Technology Environment and Health RG, Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Carla Viegas

  2. Lisbon School of Health Technology Environment and Health RG, Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Susana Viegas

  3. Lisbon School of Health Technology Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Anita Gomes

  4. Department Health Protection, National Institute for Health & Welfare, Kuopio, Finland

    Martin Täubel

  5. National Health Institute Portugal, Lisbon, Portugal

    Raquel Sabino

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Viegas, C., Smajdova, L., Faria, T., Gomes, A.Q., Viegas, S. (2017). Bioburden Exposure in Highly Contaminated Occupational Environments. In: Viegas, C., Viegas, S., Gomes, A., Täubel, M., Sabino, R. (eds) Exposure to Microbiological Agents in Indoor and Occupational Environments. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61688-9_17

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