Toxic contaminants inadvertently brought from the workplace to the home, known as take-home or paraoccupational exposures, have often been framed as a problem that arises due to unsanitary worker behavior. This review article conceptualizes take-home exposures as a public health hazard by (i) investigating the history of take-home contaminants and how they have been studied, (ii) arguing that an ecosocial view of the problem is essential for effective prevention, (iii) summarizing key structural vulnerabilities that lead populations to be at risk, and (iv) discussing future research and prevention effort needs. This article reframes take-home exposures as one of many chronic pathways that contributes to persistent health disparities among workers, their families, and communities. Including the role of work in community health will increase the comprehensiveness of prevention efforts for contaminants such as lead and pesticides that contribute to environmental disparities.

This work explores the use of Raman micro-spectroscopy to determine sources of airborne particulate matter collected on PM2.5 air filters in Imperial Valley, California. The goal is to examine if nearby soil is a potential source of particles sampled on air filters deployed in an urbanized desert area during events of unusually high PM2.5 excursions. Particle specific composition information can be an indicator of potential origin. This can provide insights into the source of unexpectedly high proportion of large particles sampled on PM2.5 filters in the vicinity of Imperial Valley. The measured spectral correspondence between the filter and soil particles, in the size range of 2.5-10 μm, is consistent with windblown dust being a likely source of the larger (>2.5 μm) particles collected on the PM2.5 filters. Additionally, these particles were identified as components of commonly occurring crustal minerals in the vicinity of the sampling site, such as iron oxides, hydroxides, sulfides, titanium dioxides and aluminosilicates. A substantial portion of the analyzed filter particles displayed a strong broadband fluorescence signal, which is consistent with the presence of organic matter and has been recognized as a marker for soil related origin of the filter particles. Elemental carbon (soot) was found to be prevalent among the particles as well, suggesting the existence of combustion related sources. Comparison between a heavily loaded filter sample and a filter with a more typical, lower loading did not show any obvious difference in chemical compositions. In both cases the particles appeared to be of crustal origin with the prevalence of elemental carbon. The primary difference between these two filter samples appear to be their particle size distribution - the heavily loaded filter sample contained greater proportion of large particles (>2.5 μm), and was more consistent with spectral signature of soils analyzed from the region.