ABSTRACT:
Asian American nail salon workers may experience routine inhalation exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including carcinogens, yet exposure characterization and mixture-based analyses remain limited in East Coast settings. We conducted a community-engaged, cross-sectional pilot study among 50 Asian American nail salon workers in 12 salons in the Greater Philadelphia region; 25 completed full-shift passive badge monitoring for 10 VOCs. We estimated screening-level inhalation cancer risk for formaldehyde and benzene using US EPA inhalation unit risks and computed noncancer hazard quotients (HQs) where reference concentrations were available. We summarized correlated exposures using principal component analysis (PCA) and evaluated associations between standardized PCA scores and dichotomized symptom frequency (none/<1 day/week vs ≥1 day/week) using Bayesian binary logistic regression adjusted for covariates. Acetone and methyl methacrylate (MMA) showed the highest concentrations and variability (median 12.0 and 1.30 ppm; maxima 58.0 and 4.20 ppm). Benzene and ethylbenzene were uniformly low (median 0.03 ppm; maximum 0.04 ppm), while formaldehyde was generally low (median 0.01 ppm) but reached 0.12 ppm. Mean excess lifetime cancer risk was 225 per million for formaldehyde and 66 per million for benzene; HQs exceeded 1 for MMA (mean 8.98) and xylenes (mean 2.72). PCA identified three mixture profiles explaining 81.9% of exposure variance. Most exposure–symptom associations were imprecise; however, higher PC2 (carbonyls/monomers) was associated with increased odds of neck problems (OR 3.39, 95% credible interval 1.05–12.9). Overall, routine services generated consistent multi-chemical exposures and highlighted priority compounds/mixtures for CBPR-informed prevention and larger confirmatory studies.