Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in the GCC Region: Exposure and Health Risk Assessment

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are persistent toxic pollutants of increasing concern in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region due to rapid urbanization, industrialization and the dominance of oil and gas extraction activities. This review synthesizes evidence from eligible studies published between 2020 and 2025 that assessed PAH contamination in environmental dust from households, cars, mosques, and sporting walkways. Across these environments, total PAH concentrations ranged from several hundred to over 37,000 ng/g, frequently exceeding international safety benchmarks. While health risk assessments revealed benzo[a]pyrene-equivalent toxicity (BaP-TEQ) values reaching critical threshold of 700 ng/g in some scenarios, incremental lifetime cancer risks (ILCRs) in all the assessed studies spanned 10⁻⁵ to 10⁻³, exceeding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s acceptable limit of 10⁻⁶. Dermal contact and ingestion were consistently the dominant exposure pathways, particularly for children and occupationally exposed groups such as taxi drivers. Smoking, incense burning, and proximity to high-traffic areas intensified PAH burdens. While non-carcinogenic risks were less frequently assessed, hazard index values(HI) occasionally exceeded the safety threshold of 1.0. These findings highlight substantial deficiency of research on chemical exposure-based health risk assessment across GCC countries beyond Kuwait and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and underscore the need for coordinated region-specific health risk frameworks to mitigate PAH exposure risks.