AIMS AND METHODS: This study explored male smokers' knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors related to SHS exposure and smoking in the home, to guide future intervention development. Twenty-four men who smoked and lived in Klang Valley, Kuantan, or Kuala Terengganu took part in semi-structured interviews which explored knowledge and beliefs regarding SHS in the home, and associated home-smoking behaviors. Data were managed and analyzed using the framework approach.
RESULTS: There was limited knowledge regarding the health risks associated with SHS: the smell of SHS in the home was a more prominent concern in most cases. Many had no rules in place restricting home smoking, and some suggested that smoking in specific rooms and/or near windows meant SHS was not "shared" with other household members. A few fathers had created but not maintained a smoke-free home prior to and/or after their children were born. Desire to smoke in the home conflicted with men's sense of responsibility as the head of the household to protect others and set a good example for their children.
CONCLUSIONS: Men's home-smoking behaviors are shaped by a lack of understanding of the health risks associated with SHS exposure. Gaining a broader understanding of the factors that shape men's decisions to create a smoke-free home is important to facilitate the development of culturally appropriate interventions that address their responsibility to protect other household members from SHS exposure.
IMPLICATIONS: Our findings highlight the need for public information campaigns in Malaysia to educate men who smoke regarding the health harms associated with SHS in the home and the ways in which SHS travels and lingers in household air. This is important given men's concerns about SHS often focus on the smell of cigarette smoke in the home. Our findings suggest a number of potential avenues for future intervention development, including household and community-level initiatives that could build on men's sense of responsibility as the head of the household and/or their general desire to protect their families.
OBJECTIVES: Extensive scientific collections and intensive look in to the latest explorations agglomerated in this document aim to depict the distribution of REEs in soil, sediments, surface waters and groundwater possibly around the globe. Furthermore, it draws attention towards potential risks of intensive industrialization and modern agriculture to the exposure of REEs, and their effects on living organisms. It also draws links of REEs usage and their footprints in natural resources with the major food chains involving plants, animals and humans.
METHODS: Scientific literature preferably spanning over the last five years was obtained online from the MEDLINE and other sources publishing the latest studies on REEs distribution, properties, usage, cycling and intrusion in the environment and food-chains. Distribution of REEs in agricultural soils, sediments, surface and ground water was drawn on the global map, together with transport pathways of REEs and their cycling in the natural resources.
RESULTS: Fourteen REEs (Ce, Dy, Er, Eu, Gd, Ho, La, Lu, Nd, Pr, Sm, Tb, Th and Yb) were plighted in this study. Wide range of their concentrations has been detected in agricultural soils (<15.9-249.1 μg g-1) and in groundwater (<3.1-146.2 μg L-1) at various sites worldwide. They have strong tendency to accumulate in the human body, and thus associated with kidney stones. The REEs could also perturb the animal physiology, especially affecting the reproductive development in both terrestrial and aquatic animals. In plants, REEs might affect the germination, root and shoot development and flowering at concentration ranging from 0.4 to 150 mg kg-1.
CONCLUSIONS: This review article precisely narrates the current status, sources, and potential effects of REEs on plants, animals, humans health. There are also a few examples where REEs have been used to benefit human health. However, still there is scarce information about threshold levels of REEs in the soil, aquatic, and terrestrial resources as well as living entities. Therefore, an aggressive effort is required for global action to generate more data on REEs. This implies we prescribe an urgent need for inter-disciplinary studies about REEs in order to identify their toxic effects on both ecosystems and organisms.
METHODS: Concentration of Po²¹⁰ was determined in the edible muscle of seafood and water from the coastal area of Kapar, Malaysia using radiochemical separation and the Alpha Spectrometry technique.
RESULTS: The activities of Po²¹⁰ in the dissolved phase of water samples ranged between 0.51 ± 0.21 and 0.71 ± 0.24 mBql⁻¹ whereas the particulate phase registered a range of 50.34 ± 11.40 to 72.07 ± 21.20 Bqkg⁻¹. The ranges of Po²¹⁰ activities in the organism samples were 4.4 ± 0.12 to 6.4 ± 0.95 Bqkg⁻¹ dry wt in fish (Arius maculatus), 45.7 ± 0.86 to 54.4 ± 1.58 Bqkg⁻¹ dry wt in shrimp (Penaeus merguiensis) and 104.3 ± 3.44 to 293.8 ± 10.04 Bqkg⁻¹ dry wt in cockle (Anadara granosa). The variation of Po²¹⁰ in organisms is dependent on the mode of their life style, ambient water concentration and seasonal changes. The concentration factors calculated for fish and molluscs were higher than the recommended values by the IAEA. An assessment of daily intake and received dose due to the consumption of seafood was also carried out and found to be 2083.85 mBqday⁻¹person⁻¹ and 249.30 μSvyr⁻¹ respectively. These values are comparatively higher than reported values in other countries. Moreover, the transformation of Po²¹⁰ in the human body was calculated and revealed that a considerable amount of Po²¹⁰ can be absorbed in the internal organs. The calculated values of life time mortality and morbidity cancer risks were 24.8 × 10⁻⁴ and 34 × 10⁻⁴ respectively which also exceeded the recommended limits set by the ICRP.
CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this present study can be used to evaluate the safety dose uptake level of seafood as well as to monitor environmental health. However, as the calculated dose and cancer risks were found to cross the limit of safety, finding a realistic way to moderate the risk is imperative.
Methods: In 12 cohorts from 6 European countries, individual estimates of annual mean air pollution levels at the baseline residence were estimated by standardized land-use regression models developed within the ESCAPE and TRANSPHORM projects: particulate matter (PM) ≤2.5, ≤10, and 2.5-10 μm in diameter (PM2.5, PM10, and PMcoarse), PM2.5 absorbance, nitrogen oxides (NO2 and NOx) and elemental composition of PM. We estimated cohort-specific associations of air pollutant concentrations and traffic intensity with total, malignant, and nonmalignant brain tumor, in separate Cox regression models, adjusting for risk factors, and pooled cohort-specific estimates using random-effects meta-analyses.
Results: Of 282194 subjects from 12 cohorts, 466 developed malignant brain tumors during 12 years of follow-up. Six of the cohorts also had data on nonmalignant brain tumor, where among 106786 subjects, 366 developed brain tumor: 176 nonmalignant and 190 malignant. We found a positive, statistically nonsignificant association between malignant brain tumor and PM2.5 absorbance (hazard ratio and 95% CI: 1.67; 0.89-3.14 per 10-5/m3), and weak positive or null associations with the other pollutants. Hazard ratio for PM2.5 absorbance (1.01; 0.38-2.71 per 10-5/m3) and all other pollutants were lower for nonmalignant than for malignant brain tumors.
Conclusion: We found suggestive evidence of an association between long-term exposure to PM2.5 absorbance indicating traffic-related air pollution and malignant brain tumors, and no association with overall or nonmalignant brain tumors.
OBJECTIVE: We examined the association between long-term exposure to ambient air pollution and incidence of postmenopausal breast cancer in European women.
METHODS: In 15 cohorts from nine European countries, individual estimates of air pollution levels at the residence were estimated by standardized land-use regression models developed within the European Study of Cohorts for Air Pollution Effects (ESCAPE) and Transport related Air Pollution and Health impacts – Integrated Methodologies for Assessing Particulate Matter (TRANSPHORM) projects: particulate matter (PM) ≤2.5μm, ≤10μm, and 2.5–10μm in diameter (PM2.5, PM10, and PMcoarse, respectively); PM2.5 absorbance; nitrogen oxides (NO2 and NOx); traffic intensity; and elemental composition of PM. We estimated cohort-specific associations between breast cancer and air pollutants using Cox regression models, adjusting for major lifestyle risk factors, and pooled cohort-specific estimates using random-effects meta-analyses.
RESULTS: Of 74,750 postmenopausal women included in the study, 3,612 developed breast cancer during 991,353 person-years of follow-up. We found positive and statistically insignificant associations between breast cancer and PM2.5 {hazard ratio (HR)=1.08 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.77, 1.51] per 5 μg/m3}, PM10 [1.07 (95% CI: 0.89, 1.30) per 10 μg/m3], PMcoarse[1.20 (95% CI: 0.96, 1.49 per 5 μg/m3], and NO2 [1.02 (95% CI: 0.98, 1.07 per 10 μg/m3], and a statistically significant association with NOx [1.04 (95% CI: 1.00, 1.08) per 20 μg/m3, p=0.04].
CONCLUSIONS: We found suggestive evidence of an association between ambient air pollution and incidence of postmenopausal breast cancer in European women. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP1742.