Listen
15 Ergebnisse
Filter
Einstellungen
Suchergebnisse
Veröffentlichung Hair mercury and urinary cadmium levels in Belgian children and their mothers within the framework of the COPHES/DEMOCOPHES projects(2014)A harmonized human biomonitoring pilot study was set up within the frame of the European projects DEMOCOPHES and COPHES. In 17 European countries, biomarkers of some environmental pollutants, including urinary cadmium and hair mercury, were measured in children and their mothers in order to obtain European-wide comparison values on these chemicals. The Belgian participant population consisted in 129 school children (6-11 years) and their mothers (= 45 years) living in urban or rural areas of Belgium.The geometric mean levels for mercury in hair were 0.383 ìg/g and 0.204 ìg/g for respectively mothers and children. Cadmium in mother's and children's urine was detected at a geometric mean concentration of respectively 0.21 and 0.04 ìg/l. For both biomarkers, levels measured in the mothers and their child were correlated. While the urinary cadmium levels increased with age, no trend was found for hair mercury content, except the fact that mothers hold higher levels than children. The hair mercury content increased significantly with the number of dental amalgam fillings, explaining partially the higher levels in the mothers by their higher presence rate of these amalgams compared to children. Fish or seafood consumption was the other main parameter determining the mercury levels in hair. No relationship was found between smoking status and cadmium or mercury levels, but the studied population included very few smokers. Urinary cadmium levels were higher in both mothers and children living in urban areas, while for mercury this difference was only significant for children. Our small population showed urinary cadmium and hair mercury levels lower than the health based guidelines suggested by the WHO or the JECFA (Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives). Only 1% had cadmium level slightly higher than the German HBM-I value (1 ìg/l for adults), and 9% exceeded the 1 ìg mercury/g hair suggested by the US EPA.
Quelle: http://www.sciencedirect.com/Veröffentlichung Urinary BPA measurements in children and mothers from six European member states(2015) Deutschland. UmweltbundesamtFor the first time in Europe, both European-wide and country-specific levels of urinary Bisphenol A (BPA) were obtained through a harmonized protocol for participant recruitment, sampling and quality controlled biomarker analysis in the frame of the twin projects COPHES and DEMOCOPHES. 674 child-mother pairs were recruited through schools or population registers from six European member states (Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden). Children (5-12 y) and mothers donated a urine sample. Information on socio-demographic characteristics, life style, dietary habits, and educational level of the parents was provided by mothers. After exclusion of urine samples with creatinine values below 300 mg/L or above 3000 mg/L, 653 children and 639 mothers remained for which BPA was measured. The geometric mean (with 95% confidence intervals) and 90th percentile were calculated for BPA separately in children and in mothers and were named ĄgEuropean reference valuesĄh. After adjustment for confounders (age and creatinine), average exposure values in each country were compared with the mean of the ĄgEuropean reference valuesĄh by means of a weighted analysis of variance. Overall geometric means of all countries (95% CI) adjusted for urinary creatinine, age and gender were 2.04 (1.87-2.24) Ţg/L and 1.88 (1.71-2.07) Ţg/L for children (n=653) and mothers (n=639), respectively. Multiple regression analysis was used to identify significant environmental, geographical, personal or life style related determinants. Consumption of canned food and social class (represented by the highest educational level of the family) were the most important predictors for the urinary levels of BPA in mothers and children. The individual BPA levels in children were significantly correlated with the levels in their mothers (r=0.265, p<0.001), which may suggest a possible common environmental/dietary factor that influences the biomarker level in each pair. Exposure of the general European population was well below the current health-based guidance values and no participant had BPA values higher than the health-based guidance values.Quelle: http://www.sciencedirect.comVeröffentlichung Project planning vs. strategic planning: Promoting a different perspective for sustainable transport policy in European R&D projects(2016) Schwedes, Oliver; Riedel, Veronique; Dziekan, KatrinThe European Commission is heavily engaged in financing R&D projects to support the development of sustainable transport. One of its largest initiatives is CIVITAS, which was launched in 2002 to re-think transport initiatives and policies in order to create cleaner, better transport in cities. The European Commission has stated that, despite all the efforts, the transport sector is not yet on the path to sustainability. In view of the discrepancy between its programmatic goals and current transport development in Europe, the CIVITAS initiative needs to be scrutinized: is the initiative able to effectively promote the development of sustainable transport? In dealing with this question, the authors draw on more than ten years of active participation in projects of the CIVITAS initiative. Focusing on the MIMOSA project, a cooperation between five European cities in five different countries, the authors show how shortcomings within the organizational framework of the initiative lead to immense transaction costs. In conclusion, the authors propose a programmatic shift from project planning to a strategic approach and make recommendations concerning the political and administrative structures needed to implement this strategic approach. Quelle: VerlagsinformationVeröffentlichung Public health impacts of city policies to reduce climate change: findings from the URGENCHE EU-China project(2016) Sabel, Clive E.; Hiscock, Rosemary; Asikainen, Arja; Tobollik, MyriamBackground: Climate change is a global threat to health and wellbeing. Here we provide findings of an international research project investigating the health and wellbeing impacts of policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in urban environments. Methods: Five European and two Chinese city authorities and partner academic organisations formed the project consortium. The methodology involved modelling the impact of adopted urban climate-change mitigation transport, buildings and energy policy scenarios, usually for the year 2020 and comparing them with business as usual (BAU) scenarios (where policies had not been adopted). Carbon dioxide emissions, health impacting exposures (air pollution, noise and physical activity), health (cardiovascular, respiratory, cancer and leukaemia) and wellbeing (including noise related wellbeing, overall wellbeing, economic wellbeing and inequalities) were modelled. The scenarios were developed from corresponding known levels in 2010 and pre-existing exposure response functions. Additionally there were literature reviews, three longitudinal observational studies and two cross sectional surveys. Results: There are four key findings. Firstly introduction of electric cars may confer some small health benefits but it would be unwise for a city to invest in electric vehicles unless their power generation fuel mix generates fewer emissions than petrol and diesel. Second, adopting policies to reduce private car use may have benefits for carbon dioxide reduction and positive health impacts through reduced noise and increased physical activity. Third, the benefits of carbon dioxide reduction from increasing housing efficiency are likely to be minor and co-benefits for health and wellbeing are dependent on good air exchange. Fourthly, although heating dwellings by in-home biomass burning may reduce carbon dioxide emissions, consequences for health and wellbeing were negative with the technology in use in the cities studied. Conclusions: The climate-change reduction policies reduced CO2 emissions (the most common greenhouse gas) from cities but impact on global emissions of CO2 would be more limited due to some displacement of emissions. The health and wellbeing impacts varied and were often limited reflecting existing relatively high quality of life and environmental standards in most of the participating cities; the greatest potential for future health benefit occurs in less developed or developing countries. Quelle: www.ehjournal.biomedcentral.comVeröffentlichung Toxic cyanobacteria and cyanotoxins in European waters(2017) Meriluoto, Jussi; Blaha, Ludek; Bojadzija, Gorenka; Fastner, JuttaVeröffentlichung Developing a groundwater watch list for substances of emerging concern: a European perspective(2019) Lapworth, Dan J.; Lopez, Benjamin; Laabs, Volker; Wolter, RüdigerThere is growing concern globally about the occurrence of anthropogenic organic contaminants in the environment, including pharmaceuticals and personal care products. This concern extends to groundwater, which is a critical water resource in Europe, and its protection is a priority to the European Commission, the European Union (EU) Member States and national agencies across Europe. Maintaining good groundwater status supports improved public health, economic growth and sustains groundwater dependant ecosystems. A range of measures have been introduced for regulating several substances that have impacted groundwater (e.g. nitrate and pesticides). However, these measures only cover a small fraction of anthropogenic substances that could pollute groundwater. Monitoring for these unregulated substances is currently very limited or not carried out at all. Therefore, a coordinated European-wide approach is needed to identify, monitor and characterise priority substances or groups of substances that have the potential to pollute groundwater. This evidence base is critical for policy development and controls on these currently unregulated substances. The European Commission highlighted this as a need during the review of the EU Groundwater Directive Annexes in 2014, when the requirement to develop a Groundwater Watch List (GWWL) was established. This paper describes the approach that has been developed through a voluntary initiative as part of the EU CIS Working Group Groundwater to establish the voluntary EU GWWL. The process for developing the GWWL is one that has brought together researchers, regulators and industry, and is described here for the first time. A summary of the key principles behind the methodology is presented as well as results from pilot studies using per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances and pharmaceuticals. These explore and support the viability of the GWWL process, an important step towards its adoption and its future use for groundwater protection across Europe. © 2019 The Author(s)Veröffentlichung Particle mass concentrations and number size distributions in 40 Homes in Germany: Indoor-to-outdoor relationships, diurnal and seasonal variation(2020) Zhao, Jiangyue; Birmili, Wolfram; Daniels, Anja; Wehner, BirgitFew studies investigated residential particle concentration levels with a full picture of aerosol particles from 10 nm to 10 Ìm size range with size-resolved information, and none was performed in central Europe in the long-term in multiple homes. To capture representative diurnal and seasonal patterns of exposure to particles, and investigate the driving factors to their variations, measurements were performed in 40 homes for around two weeks each in Leipzig and Berlin, Germany. These over 500 days' measurements combined PM10 and PM2.5 mass concentrations, particle number concentration and size distribution (PNC and PNSD, 10-800 nm), CO2 concentration, and residential activities diary into a unique dataset. Natural ventilation was dominated, the mean ventilation rate calculated from CO2 measurements was 0.2 h-1 and 3.7 h-1 with closed and opened windows, respectively. The main findings of this study showed that, the residents in German homes were exposed to a significantly higher mass concentration of coarse particles than outdoors, thus indoor exposure to coarse particles cannot be described by outdoors. The median indoor PNC diurnal cycles were generally lower than outdoors (median I/O ratio 0.69). However, indoor exposure to particles was different in the cold and warm season. In the warm season, due to longer opening window periods, indoor sources' contribution was weakened, which also resulted in the indoor PNC and PNSD being very similar to the outdoors. In the cold season, indoor sources caused strong peaks of indoor PNC that exceeded outdoors, along with the relatively low penetration factor - 0.5 for all size ranges, and indoor particle losses, which was particularly effective in reducing the ultrafine PNC, resulting in a different particle exposure load than outdoors. This study provides a detailed understanding of residential particle exposure in multiple homes, facilitating future studies to assess health effects in residential environments. Quelle. https://aaqr.org/Veröffentlichung Chemical prioritisation strategy in the European Human Biomonitoring Initiative (HBM4EU) - Development and results(2021) Ougier, Eva; David, Madlen; Ganzleben, Catherine; Lecoq, Pierre; Kolossa-Gehring, Marike; Lange, RosaThe European Human Biomonitoring Initiative (HBM4EU1) has established a European Union-wide human biomonitoring (HBM) programme to generate knowledge on human internal exposure to chemical pollutants and their potential health impacts in Europe, in order to support policy makers' efforts to ensure chemical safety and improve health in Europe. A prioritisation strategy was necessary to determine and meet the most important needs of both policy makers and risk assessors, as well as common national needs of participating countries and a broad range of stakeholders. This strategy consisted of three mains steps: 1) mapping of knowledge gaps identified by policy makers, 2) prioritisation of substances using a scoring system, and 3) generation of a list of priority substances reflective of the scoring, as well as of public policy priorities and available resources. For the first step, relevant ministries and agencies at EU and national levels, as well as members of the Stakeholder Forum each nominated up to 5 substances/substance groups of concern for policy-makers. These nominations were collated into a preliminary list of 48 substances/substance groups, which was subsequently shortened to a list of 23 after considering the total number of nominations each substance/substance group received and the nature of the nominating entities. For the second step, a panel of 11 experts in epidemiology, toxicology, exposure sciences, and occupational and environmental health scored each of the substances/substance groups using prioritisation criteria including hazardous properties, exposure characteristics, and societal concern. The scores were used to rank the 23 substances/substance groups. In addition, substances were categorised according to the level of current knowledge about their hazards, extent of human exposure (through the availability of HBM data), regulatory status and availability of analytical methods for biomarker measurement. Finally, in addition to the ranking and categorisation of the substances, the resources available for the project and the alignment with the policy priorities at European level were considered to produce a final priority list of 9 substances/substance groups for research activities and surveys within the framework of the HBM4EU project. Quelle: © 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier GmbHVeröffentlichung A pragmatic protocol for characterising errors in atmospheric inversions of methane emissions over Europe(2021) Szénási, Barbara; Berchet, Antoine; Broquet, Grégoire; Kiesow, AnjaThis study aims at estimating errors to be accounted for in atmospheric inversions of methane (CH4) emissions at the European scale. Four types of errors are estimated in the concentration space over the model domain and at selected measurement sites. Furthermore, errors in emission inventories are estimated at country and source sector scales. A technically ready method is used, which is implemented by running a set of simulations of hourly CH4 mixing ratios for 2015 using two area-limited transport models at three horizontal resolutions with multiple data sets of emissions and boundary and initial conditions as inputs. The obtained error estimates provide insights into how these errors could be treated in an inverse modelling system for inverting CH4 emissions over Europe. The main results show that sources of transport errors may better be controlled alongside the emissions, which differs from usual inversion practices. The average total concentration error is estimated at 29†ppb. The assessed error of total CH4 emissions is 22% and emission errors are heterogeneous at sector (23-49%) and country scales (16-124%), with largest errors occurring in the waste sector due to uncertainties in activity data and emission factors and in Finland due to uncertainties in natural wetland emissions. © 2021 The Author(s).Veröffentlichung Burden of non-communicable disease studies in Europe: a systematic review of data sources and methodological choices(2022) Charalampous, Periklis; Gorasso, Vanessa; Plaß, DietrichBackground Assessment of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) resulting from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) requires specific calculation methods and input data. The aims of this study were to (i) identify existing NCD burden of disease (BoD) activities in Europe; (ii) collate information on data sources for mortality and morbidity; and (iii) provide an overview of NCD-specific methods for calculating NCD DALYs. Methods NCD BoD studies were systematically searched in international electronic literature databases and in grey literature. We included all BoD studies that used the DALY metric to quantify the health impact of one or more NCDs in countries belonging to the European Region. Results A total of 163 BoD studies were retained: 96 (59%) were single-country or sub-national studies and 67 (41%) considered more than one country. Of the single-country studies, 29 (30%) consisted of secondary analyses using existing Global Burden of Disease (GBD) results. Mortality data were mainly derived (49%) from vital statistics. Morbidity data were frequently (40%) drawn from routine administrative and survey datasets, including disease registries and hospital discharge databases. The majority (60%) of national BoD studies reported mortality corrections. Multimorbidity adjustments were performed in 18% of national BoD studies. Conclusion The number of national NCD BoD assessments across Europe increased over time, driven by an increase in BoD studies that consisted of secondary data analysis of GBD study findings. Ambiguity in reporting the use of NCD-specific BoD methods underlines the need for reporting guidelines of BoD studies to enhance the transparency of NCD BoD estimates across Europe. © The Author(s) 2022