Potential health risks from heavy metal contamination in street dust from urban and rural schools in west coast division, Sabah

Street dust is made up of mineral and organic particles that collect on the road’s surface and come from a variety of sources such as industrial emission, vehicular activity and natural sources. The purpose of this study is to assess the heavy metal concentrations in street dust from selected urban and rural schools in West Coast Division, Sabah and the potential health risk to human health. Twenty street dust samples were collected from schools in urban and rural areas at ten different sampling sites where two samples were collected at two random locations for each school. PinAAcle 900T Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (AAS) was used to determine the heavy metals concentrations and health risk assessment via inhalation was conducted in children. The results from this study revealed that all heavy metals, cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), iron (Fe), Nickel (Ni) and Zinc (Zn) are present and decreasing in the order of Fe > Zn > Ni > Pb > Cd for both urban and rural schools. The statistical analysis performed in this study revealed that the mean concentration of all heavy metals in street dust between urban and rural schools were significant at p < 0.05. Meanwhile, the health risk assessment through inhalation exposure indicated that there was no harmful adverse effect of noncancer and cancer risk of these heavy metals in the street dust on children. Therefore, further research is required to be improvised to assess the presence of other toxic heavy metals that may be more dangerous towards human health.