Park, Jung-Duck Choi, Seong-Jin Choi, Byung-Sun Lee, Choong-Ryeol Kim, Heon Kim, Yong-Dae Park, Kyung-Soo Lee, Young-Jo Kang, Seojin Lim, Kyung-Min Chung, Jin-Ho 2024-01-20T03:32:45Z 2024-01-20T03:32:45Z 2021-09-04 2016-09 1559-0631 https://pubs.kist.re.kr/handle/201004/123747 Drinking water is a main source of human exposure to arsenic. Hence, the determination of arsenic in groundwater is essential to assess its impact on public health. Here, we report arsenic levels in the groundwater of 722 sites covering all six major provinces of Korea. Water was sampled in two occasions (summer, 722 sites and winter, 636 sites) and the arsenic levels were measured with highly sensitive inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry method (limit of detection, 0.1 mu g/l) to encompass the current drinking water standard (< 10 mu g/l). Seasonal variation was negligible, but the geographical difference was prominent. Total arsenic in groundwater ranged from 0.1 to 48.4 mu g/l. A 88.0-89.0% of sites were < 2.0 mu g/l and the remaining ones generally did not exceed 10 mu g/l (6.4-7.0%, 2.0-4.9 mu g/l; 2.4-3.0%, 5.0-9.9 mu g/l). However, some areas (1.0-9.2%) exhibited >10 mu g/l. Notably, urinary arsenic excretion of people around these regions was markedly higher compared with non-contaminated areas (< 5 mu g/l) (79.7 +/- 5.2 mu g/g (N = 122) vs 68.4 +/- 5.4 mu g/g (N=65) creatinine, P = 0.052). All stratified analysis also revealed higher urinary excretion, where a statistically significant difference was noted for non-smokers (85.9 +/- 12.7 vs 54.0 +/- 6.3, P=0.030), suggesting that arsenic contaminated groundwater may contribute to its systemic exposure. English NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP DRINKING-WATER PUBLIC-HEALTH SKIN-LESIONS PREVALENCE EXPOSURE Arsenic levels in the groundwater of Korea and the urinary excretion among contaminated area Article 10.1038/jes.2016.16 1 JOURNAL OF EXPOSURE SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENTAL EPIDEMIOLOGY, v.26, no.5, pp.458 - 463 JOURNAL OF EXPOSURE SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENTAL EPIDEMIOLOGY 26 5 458 463 scie scopus 000381780500004 2-s2.0-84962652097 Environmental Sciences Public, Environmental & Occupational Health Toxicology Environmental Sciences & Ecology Public, Environmental & Occupational Health Toxicology Article DRINKING-WATER PUBLIC-HEALTH SKIN-LESIONS PREVALENCE EXPOSURE arsenic groundwater monitoring urinary arsenic excretion ICP-MS