ABSTRACT
Background: air Quality Health Index [AQHI] is a scale, which was designed in Canada to help people to understand how the air quality affects their health. It measures the relationship between the air quality and health on a scale from 1 to l0+
Aim: the aim of this study was to assess traffic AQHI on one street in Alexandria, Egypt at different seasonal conditions
Methods: this was a time-series study that was conducted during the period andom January 1 to December 31, 2016 at Ibrahim Sherif Street. It was accomplished by three-hour air sampling of respirable particulates [PMlO], nitrogen dioxide [NO2], sulfur dioxide [SO2] and ground-level ozone [O3], during the morning rush hours. A total of 156 samples for each pollutant covered all seasonal variations and activities. After laboratory analysis, the added health risks [%AR] and AQHI were calculated using the Hong Kong equation
Results: the uppermost median value of %AR was during April r72.9 [23.4]] and the minimum was during January r32.2 [10.0]]. The traffic AQHIs in the study setting were of the serious category 10+ in almost all sampling days. The maximum %AR was during spring r70.0 [19.7]], and the minimum was during winter [40.6 [1 9.0]]
Conclusion: from the results of the present study, we can conclude that; the highest %AR was during April, and the minimum was during January. The traffic AQHIs in the study setting were of the serious category 10+ in almost all sampling days. The most dominating pollutant affecting the %AR and AQHI was the PM10
ABSTRACT
Background: unsafe school buildings may adversely affect students, teachers, administrative workers, cleaning workers, and visitors
Objective[s]: the aim of the present study was to evaluate the leading safety performance of public, private, and experimental primary school buildings in Alexandria, Egypt
Methods: a cross-sectional study was conducted in 30 primary schools in Alexandria selected by stratified cluster sampling. Two observational checklists were designed, validated, and used; including school building safety inspection checklist [SBSIC], and classroom safety inspection checklist [CSIC]. The completed checklists were reviewed and coded. The safety performances [SP] for each category and for the overall checklists were then calculated
Results: the SP in private primary schools and classrooms [[66.1 +/- 13.0%], [68.7 +/- 12.5]] were higher than that of experimental [[59.9 +/- 14.0%], [65.l +/- 14.2%]] and public ones [[39.3 +/- 7.8%], [46.0 +/- 11.8%] respectively]. The most common causes of reduced school SP were "the absence of protective measures against vectors and insects," "the non-daily refuse disposal," "the non-inspected play areas." Other causes included "the irregular fire drills," "the absence of the alarm system," "the non-earthed electrical equipment," "the absence of emergency plan," and "the unmarked tripping slipping locations." The most frequent unsafe classroom conditions were "the absence of classroom alarm point," "the on-board glare," and "the non-compliant windows to class area ratios"
Conclusion: many safety violations were found to occur in Alexandria primary schools. This would cause a reduction of the safety performance and consequently a lack of safety management. Safety performance in private schools was better than that in experimental and public ones