Air Sampling Instruments for Evaluation of Atmospheric Contaminants, Fifth Edition

Our plain-English summary of Air Sampling Instruments for Evaluation of Atmospheric Contaminants, Fifth Edition (1978).

The study

• Published: American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) (1978)
• Type of article: Book excerpt
• Our copy: from Johns-Manville's own medical library. The article is still under copyright, so we describe it here rather than post it.

In plain English

This is not a research study. It is a technical chapter, Section A, 'Air Sampling and Analysis for Contaminants in Work Places', by Melvin W. First of the Harvard University School of Public Health, from the fifth edition of the ACGIH handbook 'Air Sampling Instruments'. The chapter described how workplace air sampling equipment had moved from the Greenburg-Smith impinger to the smaller midget impinger, and then to personal samplers using membrane filters and battery-operated pumps. It explained personal versus area sampling, brief 'grab' samples versus longer 'integrated' samples, statistical treatment of results, and methods for sampling and analyzing gases, vapors and particles. It described a NIOSH recommendation that a measurement at or above one half of the standard be treated as an 'action level'. It noted that membrane filters were widely used to collect mineral dusts for examination by optical and electron microscopy. Asbestos was named only once, as an example of a relatively insoluble mineral dust. The chapter reported no data on asbestos exposure or disease. The author concluded that completing the program to standardize sampling and analysis for every substance in the TLV list was urgently needed.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Technical handbook chapter describing air sampling and analysis methods for workplaces (not a study of people or exposures)
• Who was studied: No people were studied. The chapter covers sampling of workroom air in general.
• Exposure: Airborne workplace contaminants in general: gases, vapors, dusts, fumes, smokes and mists. Asbestos is mentioned only as one example of a relatively insoluble mineral dust.
• Main results:
  • The chapter described a NIOSH recommendation that a single measurement at or above one half of the standard be the 'action level' that triggers repeat measurement.
  • The chapter stated that membrane filters were widely used to collect mineral dusts for examination by optical and electron microscopy.
  • A separate excerpt included in the text (from a book chapter on determining dust concentration) stated that light-field counting of impinger samples captured only particles larger than about 1 micron.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that completing the program to standardize sampling and analytical methods for every substance in the TLV list was urgently needed.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Air Sampling, Midget Impinger, NIOSH, Asbestos Exposure.

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