Monitoring of construction dust and assessment of probable increment in mortality risks for exposed construction workers at Kolkata, India

The present study assesses the construction dust pollution scenario and associated health risks for construction sites in the Kolkata metropolis. The generated PM levels well exceeded the daily and annual National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) of India (214.78-12 202.28 and 424.64-20 403.81%, respectively for PM10 and 182.20-5847.92 and 323.29-8821.88%, respectively for PM2.5). Mortality risks associated with long-term exposure to such high PM levels are estimated for construction workers. The stochastic nature of the influencing variables while calculating health risks is handled through the Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS). The mortality risks for different causes due to elevated PM10 exposure (RR_Expos_PM10) ranged between 1.25 (±1.20) for the risk of stroke for earthwork workers to 75.89 (±46.87) for the risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) for brick wall-cutting workers. The mortality risks for PM2.5 exposure (RR_Expos_PM2.5) ranged between 1.96 (±0.40) for the risk of non-malignant respiratory diseases for earthwork workers to 19.04 (±8.82) for the risk of acute lower respiratory infections (ALRI) for brick wall-cutting workers. A sensitivity analysis was also carried out, which showed that the mortality risk associated with PM10 and PM2.5 exposure is most sensitive to the PM10 concentration during construction activities and pooled relative risk for PM2.5. The mortality risk of exposed construction workers was alarmingly higher (14.68-3548.56% higher for PM10 and 61.60-1269.78% higher for PM2.5) than the average Kolkata City population. Policy-level and site-level interventions are necessary to control and mitigate the alarming scenario.