Assessment of indoor bioaerosols in kitchen and age-specific dose rate exposure / Nur Atiqah Said

Indoor air quality has become a concern based on several research studies which have been carried out regarding cooking activities. This study was undertaken to assess the concentration of indoor bioaerosols in the kitchen for each stages of cooking and estimate the age-specific dose rate exposure to students and staffs. The study also determines the influence of thermal factor of the level of concentration of bioaerosols. A total of 48 samples of biological air samples of bacteria and fungi was set up in culinary and pastry laboratories. Passive sampling technique was applied by exposing the agar plate for 15 minutes for each stage of cooking. The age-specific dose rate exposure was estimated by formula which includes the concentration of bioaerosols. The concentrations of bacterial and fungal contaminations in culinary laboratories are 812.561
CFU/m³ and 1113.995 CFU/m³ respectively, which exceeds the Malaysian standard limit before cooking activities. Indoor bacterial and fungal concentration was strongly negative correlated to temperature (-0.807) and moderately positive correlated (0.677) to relative humidity. The age-specific dosed rate exposure of bacteria and fungi was higher towards students compared to the staffs in culinary which are 3.1 x 10⁷ CFU/kg/day and 3.0 x 10⁷ CFU/kg/day respectively. Indoor bioaerosols concentration were affected by the age-specific dose rate exposure in the kitchen and also significantly influenced by thermal factors