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Proceedings from the 3rd International Symposium on Environment and Health

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A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2017) | Viewed by 57820

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Dr. Jose A. Centeno

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Guest Editor

1. Division of Occupational & Environmental Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21201, USA
2. Department of Chemistry, Center for Chemical Sensors—Chemical Imaging and Surface Analysis Center, University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, Mayaguez, PR 00681, USA
Interests: metals toxicology; environmental and toxicological pathology; occupational and forensic toxicology of metals; biomonitoring to metal exposures; human health and risk assessment to metal exposures; medical geology; metalloids and health effects; metals used in medical devices; biocompatibility of metals; regulatory sciences
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The 3^rd International Symposium on Environment and Health (3^rd ISEH 2016) conference series provides an internationally leading platform for interaction between scientists, consultants, and public health professionals engaged in the multi-disciplinary areas of environment and public health. The importance of environment and public health is widely recognized in the world, and there is a growing demand for international experts to work collaborative to address a wide range of issues on a multidisciplinary scientific approach which include the integration of emerging and re-emerging field such as medical; geology, environmental geochemistry, toxicology, epidemiology, biomedical research, and public health.. This conference provides an opportunity for a direct communication between international experts working on each of the above aforementioned fields, and helps to foster and develop international collaborations. ISEH 2016 is the 3^rd conference in this series, which comes back to NUI Galway in order to build a stronger network

You are invited to submit papers to be presented at the ISEH 2016 Conference http://www.nuigalway.ie/iseh2016/), for publication in the IJERPH (Impact Factor 2.063). This Special Issue will be Guest Edited by Dr. Jose A. Centeno. Participants of this conference will receive a 20% discount on the Article Processing Charges. Papers submitted to this Special Issue of the IJERPH will undergo the standard peer-review procedure. Published papers will be indexed by the SCIE (Web of Science) and PubMed.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jose A. Centeno
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

1305 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Drinking Water Uranium and Potential Health Effects in the German Federal State of Bavaria

by Andre Banning and Mira Benfer

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2017, 14(8), 927; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14080927 - 18 Aug 2017

Cited by 38 | Viewed by 6468

Abstract

Mainly due to its nephrotoxic and osteotoxic potential, uranium (U) increasingly finds itself in the spotlight of environmental and health-related research. Germany decided on a binding U guideline value in drinking water of 10 µg/L, valid since 2011. It is yet widely unknown if and how public health was affected by elevated U concentrations before that. In this ecological study we summarized available drinking water U data for the German federal state of Bavaria (703 analyses in total for 553 different municipalities) at county level (for 76 out of 96 Bavarian counties, representing about 83% of Bavaria’s and about 13% of Germany’s total population) in terms of mean and maximum U concentration. Bavaria is known to regionally exhibit mainly geogenically elevated groundwater U with a maximum value of 40 µg/L in the database used here. Public health data were obtained from federal statistical authorities at county resolution. These included incidence rates of diagnosed diseases suspected to be potentially associated with chronic U uptake, e.g., diseases of the skeleton, the liver or the thyroid as well as tumor and genito-urinary diseases. The datasets were analyzed for interrelations and mutual spatial occurrence using statistical approaches and GIS as well as odds ratios and relative risks calculations. Weak but significant positive associations between maximum U concentrations and aggregated ICD-10 diagnose groups for growths/tumors as well as liver diseases were observed, elevated incidence rates of thyroid diseases seem to occur where mean drinking water U concentrations exceed 2 µg/L. Here, we discuss obtained results and their implications for potential impacts of hydrochemistry on public health in southeast Germany. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Proceedings from the 3rd International Symposium on Environment and Health)

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1907 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Lithium in Drinking Water and Incidence of Suicide: A Nationwide Individual-Level Cohort Study with 22 Years of Follow-Up

by Nikoline N. Knudsen, Jörg Schullehner, Birgitte Hansen, Lisbeth F. Jørgensen, Søren M. Kristiansen, Denitza D. Voutchkova, Thomas A. Gerds, Per K. Andersen, Kristine Bihrmann, Morten Grønbæk, Lars V. Kessing and Annette K. Ersbøll

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2017, 14(6), 627; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14060627 - 10 Jun 2017

Cited by 47 | Viewed by 15983

Abstract

Suicide is a major public health concern. High-dose lithium is used to stabilize mood and prevent suicide in patients with affective disorders. Lithium occurs naturally in drinking water worldwide in much lower doses, but with large geographical variation. Several studies conducted at an aggregate level have suggested an association between lithium in drinking water and a reduced risk of suicide; however, a causal relation is uncertain. Individual-level register-based data on the entire Danish adult population (3.7 million individuals) from 1991 to 2012 were linked with a moving five-year time-weighted average (TWA) lithium exposure level from drinking water hypothesizing an inverse relationship. The mean lithium level was 11.6 μg/L ranging from 0.6 to 30.7 μg/L. The suicide rate decreased from 29.7 per 100,000 person-years at risk in 1991 to 18.4 per 100,000 person-years in 2012. We found no significant indication of an association between increasing five-year TWA lithium exposure level and decreasing suicide rate. The comprehensiveness of using individual-level data and spatial analyses with 22 years of follow-up makes a pronounced contribution to previous findings. Our findings demonstrate that there does not seem to be a protective effect of exposure to lithium on the incidence of suicide with levels below 31 μg/L in drinking water. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Proceedings from the 3rd International Symposium on Environment and Health)

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6965 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Lithium in the Natural Waters of the South East of Ireland

by Laurence Kavanagh, Jerome Keohane, John Cleary, Guiomar Garcia Cabellos and Andrew Lloyd

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2017, 14(6), 561; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14060561 - 26 May 2017

Cited by 30 | Viewed by 8059

Abstract

The South East of Ireland (County Carlow) contains a deposit of the valuable lithium-bearing mineral spodumene (LiAl(SiO₃)₂). This resource has recently attracted interest and abstractive mining in the area is a possibility for the future. The open cast mining of this resource could represent a potential hazard in the form of metalliferous pollution to local water. The population of County Carlow is just under 60,000. The local authority reports that approximately 75.7% of the population’s publicly supplied drinking water is abstracted from surface water and 11.6% from groundwater. In total, 12.7% of the population abstract their water from private groundwater wells. Any potential entry of extraneous metals into the area’s natural waters will have implications for people in county Carlow. It is the goal of this paper to establish background concentrations of lithium and other metals in the natural waters prior to any mining activity. Our sampling protocol totaled 115 sites along five sampling transects, sampled through 2015. From this dataset, we report a background concentration of dissolved lithium in the natural waters of County Carlow, surface water at

\bar{x}

= 0.02, SD = 0.02 ranging from 0 to 0.091 mg/L and groundwater at

\bar{x}

= 0.023, SD = 0.02 mg/L ranging from 0 to 0.097 mg/L. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Proceedings from the 3rd International Symposium on Environment and Health)

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2516 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Nitrate, Nitrite, and Ammonium Variability in Drinking Water Distribution Systems

by Jörg Schullehner, Leslie Stayner and Birgitte Hansen

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2017, 14(3), 276; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14030276 - 09 Mar 2017

Cited by 61 | Viewed by 7108

Abstract

Accurate assessments of exposure to nitrate in drinking water is a crucial part of epidemiological studies investigating long-term adverse human health effects. However, since drinking water nitrate measurements are usually collected for regulatory purposes, assumptions on (1) the intra-distribution system variability and (2) short-term (seasonal) concentration variability have to be made. We assess concentration variability in the distribution system of nitrate, nitrite, and ammonium, and seasonal variability in all Danish public waterworks from 2007 to 2016. Nitrate concentrations at the exit of the waterworks are highly correlated with nitrate concentrations within the distribution net or at the consumers’ taps, while nitrite and ammonium concentrations are generally lower within the net compared with the exit of the waterworks due to nitrification. However, nitrification of nitrite and ammonium in the distribution systems only results in a relatively small increase in nitrate concentrations. No seasonal variation for nitrate, nitrite, or ammonium was observed. We conclude that nitrate measurements taken at the exit of the waterworks are suitable to calculate exposures for all consumers connected to that waterworks and that sampling frequencies in the national monitoring programme are sufficient to describe temporal variations in longitudinal studies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Proceedings from the 3rd International Symposium on Environment and Health)

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1650 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Impact of Calcium and Magnesium in Groundwater and Drinking Water on the Health of Inhabitants of the Slovak Republic

by Stanislav Rapant, Veronika Cvečková, Katarína Fajčíková, Darina Sedláková and Beáta Stehlíková

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2017, 14(3), 278; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14030278 - 08 Mar 2017

Cited by 49 | Viewed by 7166

Abstract

This work aims to evaluate the impact of the chemical composition of groundwater/drinking water on the health of inhabitants of the Slovak Republic. Primary data consists of 20,339 chemical analyses of groundwater (34 chemical elements and compounds) and data on the health of the Slovak population expressed in the form of health indicators (HI). Fourteen HIs were evaluated including life expectancy, potential years of lost life, relative/standardized mortality for cardiovascular and oncological diseases, and diseases of the gastrointestinal and respiratory systems. The chemical and health data were expressed as the mean values for each of the 2883 Slovak municipalities. Artificial neural network (ANN) was the method used for environmental and health data analysis. The most significant relationship between HI and chemical composition of groundwater was documented as Ca + Mg (mmol·L⁻¹), Ca and Mg. The following limit values were set for these most significant groundwater chemical parameters: Ca + Mg 2.9–6.1 mmol·L⁻¹, Ca 78–155 mg·L⁻¹ and Mg 28–54 mg·L⁻¹. At these concentration ranges, the health of the Slovak population is the most favorable and the life expectancy is the highest. These limit values are about twice as high in comparison to the current Slovak valid guideline values for drinking water. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Proceedings from the 3rd International Symposium on Environment and Health)

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1795 KiB

Open AccessArticle

In Vitro Investigations of Human Bioaccessibility from Reference Materials Using Simulated Lung Fluids

by Aurélie Pelfrêne, Mark R. Cave, Joanna Wragg and Francis Douay

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2017, 14(2), 112; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14020112 - 24 Jan 2017

Cited by 95 | Viewed by 7465

Abstract

An investigation for assessing pulmonary bioaccessibility of metals from reference materials is presented using simulated lung fluids. The objective of this paper was to contribute to an enhanced understanding of airborne particulate matter and its toxic potential following inhalation. A large set of metallic elements (Ba, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb, Sr, and Zn) was investigated using three lung fluids (phosphate-buffered saline, Gamble’s solution and artificial lysosomal fluid) on three standard reference materials representing different types of particle sources. Composition of the leaching solution and four solid-to-liquid (S/L) ratios were tested. The results showed that bioaccessibility was speciation- (i.e., distribution) and element-dependent, with percentages varying from 0.04% for Pb to 86.0% for Cd. The higher extraction of metallic elements was obtained with the artificial lysosomal fluid, in which a relative stability of bioaccessibility was observed in a large range of S/L ratios from 1/1000 to 1/10,000. For further investigations, it is suggested that this method be used to assess lung bioaccessibility of metals from smelter-impacted dusts. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Proceedings from the 3rd International Symposium on Environment and Health)

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673 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Comparison of Gastric versus Gastrointestinal PBET Extractions for Estimating Oral Bioaccessibility of Metals in House Dust

by Kristina Boros, Danielle Fortin, Innocent Jayawardene, Marc Chénier, Christine Levesque and Pat E. Rasmussen

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2017, 14(1), 92; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14010092 - 18 Jan 2017

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 4626

Abstract

Oral bioaccessibility estimates for six metals which are prevalent as contaminants in Canada (zinc, lead, cadmium, copper, nickel, and chromium) are investigated for house dust using the simple gastric phase versus the two-phase physiologically-based extraction technique (PBET). The purpose is to determine whether a complete gastrointestinal (GI) assay yields a more conservative (i.e., higher) estimate of metal bioaccessibility in house dust than the gastric phase alone (G-alone). The study samples include household vacuum dust collected from 33 homes in Montreal, Canada, plus four certified reference materials (NIST 2583, NIST 2584, NIST 2710 and NIST 2710a). Results indicate that percent bioaccessibilities obtained using G-alone are generally greater than or equivalent to those obtained using the complete GI simulation for the six studied metals in house dust. Median bioaccessibilities for G-alone/GI in household vacuum dust samples (n = 33) are 76.9%/19.5% for zinc, 50.4%/6.2% for lead, 70.0%/22.4% for cadmium, 33.9%/30.5% for copper and 28.5%/20.7% for nickel. Bioaccessible chromium is above the detection limit in only four out of 33 samples, for which G-alone results are not significantly different from GI results (p = 0.39). It is concluded that, for the six studied metals, a simple G-alone extraction provides a conservative and cost-effective approach for estimating oral bioaccessibility of metals in house dust. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Proceedings from the 3rd International Symposium on Environment and Health)

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