OCCUPATIONAL EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT OF HEAVY METALS AMONG CONSTRUCTION WORKERS AT RAWALPINDI, PAKISTAN

Abstract

Construction work is one of the primary drivers of development and economic activity in Pakistan and people are focusing more on this sector. A variety of activities are performed at the construction site such as cement mixing, carpentry, painting, and many more. Workers working in these activities are exposed to toxic heavy metals. Due to exposure to these heavy metals, subjects are at high risk to develop different diseases mainly skin and respiratory diseases. Human hair and nail samples of construction workers were collected in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Heavy metals Al, As, Cd, Cr, Ni, K, Pb, and Zn were analyzed in the hair and fingernails of the construction workers. To determine the level of selected heavy metals, Inductively Coupled Plasma optical emission spectrometry was used. Results revealed that Al was the highest with mean concentration 7.54 μg/g whereas Cd was the lowest with mean concentration 0.0 μg/g in both hair and nails of the subjects. Heavy metal concentration was high in hair (1.77 μg/g) as compared to nails (1.19 μg/g). Moreover, the workers of the carpentry group have higher HM concentrations when compared to the other two groups, painting and cement mixing and this group was at high risk of toxic metal exposure. After the correlation analysis, the results revealed that some of the heavy metals in hair and nails were significantly correlated with each other.