Prediction of relevant exposure sources to aggregate chemical exposures from general and occupational environments: exploration of a decision tree approach

The findings indicated that the use of high- or medium-specification glove boxes, as forms of permanent encapsulation or encasing of the emission source, results in occupational exposure that is negligible compared with the exposure from consumer product use. When these glove boxes were used, hair spray exposure was the dominant source in 89% and 82% of cases, for high and medium specifications, respectively. A spraying activity with surface liquids performed outdoors (close to buildings) showed a significant trend toward occupational exposure dominance in 81% of cases. Using these three determinants, a three-layer quantitative decision tree was built to help users quickly decide whether aggregation was relevant before performing calculations. Aggregation was suggested in 91% of cases and avoided it in 9%.