Urban benzene and population exposure

Benzene pollution emanating from motor vehicle traffic can cause leukemia, with the risk being estimated at about 4 cases/million among people who experience lifelong exposure to benzene concentrations of 1 mu g/m sup(3) in air. In this article, the authors show that personal exposure, and therefore risk estimates, cannot simply be estimated from environmental concentrations of benzene. Using a new sampling device that monitors both of these parameters, it was discovered that people living in different European cities are exposed to concentrations of benzene that may be 3 times as high as the urban average.