The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
What is exposome? Exposome is the record of every interaction an individual has with his or her environment since conception. These interactions could be external, such as exposure to air and water pollution and diet, or internal such as the body’s response to infection or psychological stress. Unlike genetic factors …
Traditionally, epidemiologists have considered electrification to be a positive factor. In fact, electrification and plumbing are typical initiatives that represent the integration of an isolated population into modern society, ensuring the control of pathogens and promoting public health. Nonetheless, electrification is always accompanied by night lighting that attracts insect vectors …
Epidemiological transition is a process whereby the predominant causes of death shift from communicable/parasitic diseases to non-communicable diseases. A study of the Medical Certification of Cause of Death in Maharashtra shows that the share of communicable diseases has gone down only slightly while diseases of the circulatory system, neoplasm and …
How does artificial light affect insects? The strong illumination of artificial light attracts insects. We reviewed the epidemiological information on three insect-borne diseases, chagas, kala azar and malaria, and found artificial lighting changed the behaviour of insect vectors and thereby the modes of disease transmission. For example, the chagas parasite …
The corporate sector has joined hands with the BMC in its war against malaria. As part of their corporate social responsibility, a number of organisations funded the initial lot of the Mosquito Larvicidal (ML) oil that the BMC procured on Saturday from the Indian Oil Corporation. It is believed that …
Gram-negative Enterobacteriaceae with resistance to carbapenem conferred by New Delhi metallo-?-lactamase 1 (NDM-1) are potentially a major global health problem. The researchers investigated the prevalence of NDM-1, in multidrug-resistant Enterobacteriaceae in India, Pakistan, and the UK.Note: This research paper is available free online after registration to the journal Lancet Infectious …
Epidemiologic evidence suggests that chronic stress may alter susceptibility to air pollution, but spatial confounding between these factors limits the utility of epidemiologic methods to disentangle these effects and investigate physiologic mechanisms. Clougherty et al. (p. 769) compared respiratory responses to concentrated ambient particles (CAPs) and examined biological markers of …
Visakhapatnam, May 19: Noted lawyer and environmentalist, Mr S. Niroop, has suggested that an epidemiology test should be conducted in the city to test the intensity of the pollution that has been affecting the people. The test is conducted by the World Health Organisation on the request of the state …
Epidemiological studies link organophosphorus pesticide (OP) exposures to asthma, and we have shown that the OPs chlorpyrifos, diazinon and parathion cause airway hyperreactivity in guinea pigs 24 hr after a single subcutaneous injection. OP-induced airway hyperreactivity involves M2 muscarinic receptor dysfunction on airway nerves independent of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibition, but …
Comprehensive, longitudinal field studies that monitor both disease and vector populations for dengue viruses are urgently needed as a pre-requisite for developing locally adaptable prevention programs or to appropriately test and license new vaccines. The authors report the results from such a study spanning 5 years in the Amazonian city …
One challenge in assessing the health effects of human exposure to air pollution in epidemiologic studies is the lack of widespread historical air pollutant monitoring data to characterize past exposure levels. Davis et al. (p. 614) developed an alternative model of exposure based on the hypothesis that economic activity predicts …
Motor vehicles are a significant source of urban air pollution and are increasingly important contributors of anthropogenic carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. As awareness of the potential health effects of air pollutants has grown, many countries have implemented more stringent emissions controls and made steady progress in reducing the …
Use of environmentally persistent polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants has been reduced because of concerns about health effects, but potential health effects of organophosphate (OP) flame retardants used as alternatives to PBDEs have not been extensively investigated, despite evidence of widespread human exposure. Meeker and Stapleton (p. 318) measured …
It has been proposed that formaldehyde may influence the risk or severity of asthma through irritant effects by stimulating allergic responses (when linked with endogenous proteins) or by inhibiting bronchodilation, but findings of observational studies of childhood asthma and formaldehyde have been inconsistent. McGwin et al. conducted a systematic review …
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified occupational exposure as a painter as being carcinogenic to humans based on a comprehensive review published in 1989. Guha et al. (p. 303) extend the previous review with a quantitative meta-analysis of occupation as a painter and lung cancer based on …
The investigation and control of foodborne disease outbreaks are multi-disciplinary tasks requiring skills in the areas of clinical medicine, epidemiology, laboratory medicine, food microbiology and chemistry, food safety and food control, and risk communication and management. Many outbreaks of foodborne disease are poorly investigated, if at all, because these skills …
Atrazine and other corn herbicides are routinely detected in drinking water. Two studies on potential association of atrazine with small-for-gestational-age (SGA) and preterm birth prevalence found inconsistent results. Moreover, these studies did not control for individual-level potential confounders. This retrospective cohort study evaluated whether atrazine in drinking water is associated …
The aim of this study was to review epidemiologic evidence, provide summary risk estimates of the association between exposure to chlorination disinfection by-products (DBPs) and congenital anomalies, and provide recommendations for future studies.
