Abstract:
Every person in Kenya is entitled to a clean and healthy environment. This includes
the access to the various public elements or segments of the environment for
recreational, educational, health, spiritual and cultural purposes. As a practice, the
traffic police officers (TPO’s) spend most of their time on the road controlling traffic
a routine that exposes them to automobile emissions. This study was therefore
carried out to investigate the levels of exposure to automobile emissions and to
determine the health effects of exposure. Emissions of carbon monoxide (CO),
carbon dioxide (CO2) and oxides of nitrogen (NOx) from vehicles in the Central
Business District in Nairobi were sampled. A gas aspiration pump AP-20 together
with detector tubes were used to determine the levels of NOx, CO emissions while
Testo 435 multi-function measuring instrument was used to determine CO2 levels,
wind velocity and temperature at ten purposely selected sites within the Central
Business District. The results showed that CO2, CO and NOx sampled had means of
634.80 parts per million (ppm), 12.74 ppm and 2.56 ppm respectively. These results
demonstrated that the TPO’s were exposed to CO, CO2 and NOx levels that were
above the recommended occupational exposure limits-control limit for the gases
according to Legal Notice No. 60 of 2007 (GOK, 2007).
