Scientific substantiation of average annual maximum permissible level of vanadium pentoxide in ambient air as per permissible health risk

Abstract

Relevance of this study is determined by the sanitary-epidemiological legislation of the Russian Federation with stipulated requirements to create hygiene standards for environmental factors ensuring their safety for people. These hygienic standards should guarantee absence of impermissible lifetime health risks. Divanadium pentoxide is a chemical that should be mandatorily regulated in ambient air under long-term exposure due to its wide prevalence and high toxicity. An average annual MPL for divanadium pentoxide was established by using systemic analysis of research literature and regulatory documents. According to selection results, three key epidemiological studies were taken for further analysis. They provided evidence of adverse effects produced by divanadium pentoxide on human health (the respiratory organs in particular) under chronic inhalation exposure. When analyzing a study design, we paid special attention to description of observation groups, values of exposure and nature of its effects, adverse health outcomes caused by exposure to divanadium pentoxide as well as to a type and a value of a point of departure. We calculated a value of the total (complex) uncertainty factor in order to establish an average annual maximum permissible level of the analyzed chemical. As a result, we suggest a scientifically substantiated (among other things, as per permissible health risk levels) average annual maximum permissible level for divanadium pentoxide, which equals 0.0001 mg/m3. This level is safe for human health under lifetime exposure. It is noteworthy that this level corresponds to ‘low uncertainty’, which indicates its high safety for human health.