Health Risk Assessment of Heavy Metals via Ingestion and Dermal Absorption of Water in Mogpog and Boac Rivers, Marinduque, Philippines

The purpose of this paper was to assess the potential human health risk posed by heavy metals in surface water in Marinduque, specifically Boac and Mogpog River. Secondary data from Regional Environmental Management Bureau were used. The health risk assessment was patterned from the model made by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) In this study, the pathways of exposure considered were ingestion, and dermal absorption of water pathways. Result revealed that the mean concentrations of the heavy metals in water varied significantly. Among the two exposure pathways for children, dermal absorption provided a higher Hazard Quotient (HQ) for copper, lead and cadmium. On the contrary, for adults only copper and lead have higher HQ of dermal absorption pathway. Hazard indexes (HI) for adult and children via different exposure pathways were found to be less than the standard value of 1. This means that there is less potential to non-carcinogenic health effects and risks. More so, adults were more at risk to cancer via ingestion of water while for dermal absorption exposure pathway children were more at risk