Infants may ingest harmful contaminants as they crawl

The dust particles infants kick up while crawling across the floor could be more harmful to them than we realize, Purdue University researchers say.

Brandon Boor, associate professor of civil engineering, leads a multidisciplinary research team for the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that is looking into the physical and chemical characteristics of dust and other particulates found in indoor environments. Once analyzed, researchers can use the data to determine infant ingestion rates and surface transfer behaviors of dust particles.

“For this project, we wanted to evaluate exactly how much dust infants ingest,” Boor said. “The EPA is interested because there are many contaminants in dust, ranging anywhere from antimicrobials to lead — some of which can be harmful to early-childhood health.”

The experimental procedure is divided into four key processes: sample collection, sample packaging, characteristic analysis and surface transfer analysis. A standardized vacuuming method has been used to collect dust samples from infant-occupied urban and suburban homes around the U.S. Dust samples have been sifted for fibers and analyzed to determine characteristics such as mass, density, particulate size and chemical composition.

Brian Magnuson, an undergraduate student researcher, helped design and build a full-scale environmental chamber to conduct dust transfer experiments.

To test and measure the amount of particles kicked up, Boor and Brian Magnuson, an undergraduate student researcher, designed and built a full-scale environmental chamber to conduct their dust transfer experiments. Magnuson also designed and built dust sampling equipment and is co-designing a new robotic platform to simulate dust transfer to an infant’s hands.

“There wasn’t any equipment out there that could be used to conduct the experiments we wanted to conduct, so we had to make our own,” Magnuson said. “Using what we designed and created, we can now replicate organic movements with our robotic model and with our chamber we can adjust the weight and velocity in which it moves across the floor to evaluate different hand contact impulses.”

Additionally, Boor’s team is working with both a psychologist and a chemist from Purdue to assist with their research.

“We are looking into determining just how often infants are touching the floor, how often they are putting their hands in their mouths and how often the things they touch are touching the floor,” Boor said. “We can use that data to better determine how much dust an infant has ingested during the day.”

Boor said the team is continuing to test and collect data which they will share with NYU’s Infant Action Lab to develop a comprehensive report.