Wastewater-based Epidemiology for the Assessment of Human Exposure to Environmental Pollutants discusses wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) and its use in risk assessment and monitoring of human exposure to hazardous pollutants and pathogens. The book explores the health impacts of organic and inorganic pollutants from pesticides, heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, phthalates, personal care products, and endocrine disruptors in the wastewater environment. The book examines the application of wastewater-based epidemiology in determining health risk and exposure to infectious diseases caused by viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2, parasites, and bacteria. Other topics include detection techniques, sampling techniques, analytical methods, biomarkers, and the use of biosensors in wastewater-based epidemiology studies. Presents evidence mapping to identify emerging areas in wastewater-based epidemiology studies Offers expansion and diversification strategies in pandemic conditions to serve immediate public health goals Explains the surveillance of the spread of pathogens through wastewater

Determining the health risks to humans of exposure to toxic substances in the environment is made difficult by problems such as measuring the degree to which people have been exposed and determining causationâ€"whether observed health effects are due to exposure to a suspected toxicant. Building on the well-received first volume, Environmental Epidemiology: Hazardous Wastes and Public Health, this second volume continues the examination of ways to address these difficulties. It describes effective epidemiological methods for analyzing data and focuses on errors that may occur in the course of analyses. The book also investigates the utility of the gray literature in helping to identify the often elusive causative agent behind reported health effects. Although gray literature studies are often based on a study group that is quite small, use inadequate measures of exposure, and are not published, many of the reports from about 20 states that were examined by the committee were judged to be publishable with some additional work. The committee makes recommendations to improve the utility of the gray literature by enhancing quality and availability.

The impact of the environment on human health is of growing concern to the public, politicians and public health practitioners. Epidemiology offers a way of investigating and measuring potential hazards, from local sources of pollution to global climate changes. It allows real effects to be distinguished from chance associations. This book describes the methods available for public health practitioners to enable investigations to be carried out and how findings should be interpreted to ensure that the most appropriate policies are adopted. The book examines: Air pollution Clusters of cases of ill-health Radiation and hazardous waste Water and health Climate change Contributors: Mike Ahern, Ben Armstrong, Araceli Busby, Pat Doyle, Shakoor Hajat, Sari Kovats, Paul Wilkinson. Series Editors: Rosalind Plowman and Nicki Thorogood.

This volume examines every potential means of exposure to water contaminants, provides in-depth discussions on toxicology, and explains up-to-date techniques for evaluating human health risk. It develops a methodology for assessing the cumulative absorbed dose of contaminants through all routes of exposure, including ingestion, inhalation and dermal. Federal and state efforts to monitor and treat water are examined.

Monitoring human exposure to chemicals posing public health threats is critically important for risk management and for informing regulatory actions. Chemical threats result from both environmental pollutants and elected substance use (e.g., consumption of drugs, alcohol and tobacco). Measuring chemical occurrence and concentrations in environmental matrices can help to pinpoint human exposure routes. For instance, indoor dust, a sink of indoor environmental contaminants, can serve to assess indoor air contamination and associated human exposures. Urban wastewater arriving at treatment plants contains urine and stool from the general population, the analysis of which can provide information on chemical threats in the community and ongoing harmful exposures. Analysis of sewage sludge can serve to reveal the identity and quantity of persistent organic pollutants in cities and inform estimates of toxic body burdens in local populations. The objective of this dissertation was to investigate the occurrence and quantity of select, potentially harmful, anthropogenic chemicals in various environmental matrices and to explore the diagnostic value of analytical assays for informing public health decision-making. This dissertation (i) is the first to report spatio-temporal variations and estrogenic burdens of five parabens in sewage sludge from at the U.S. nationwide scale; (ii) represents the first China-wide survey to assess the occurrence and toxic emissions of parabens, triclosan, triclocarban, as well as triclocarban metabolites and transformation products contained in Chinese sewage sludge; (iii) documents the first use of a dispersive solid phase extraction method for indoor dust to measure dust-borne parabens, triclosan and triclocarban and estimating associated human exposures from dust ingestion; and (iv) is the first U.S. study to assess population-level alcohol and nicotine consumption in three U.S. communities using wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE). Obtained data on baseline levels of selected emerging contaminants in sewage sludge and indoor dust can serve to inform the future monitoring needs, risk assessment, and policy making. This work showcases the utility of WBE and urban metabolism metrology via dust and sewage sludge analysis to assess human behavior (e.g., drinking and smoking) and exposure risks more rapidly, efficiently and anonymously than traditional approaches can.

Incineration has been used widely for waste disposal, including household, hazardous, and medical wasteâ€"but there is increasing public concern over the benefits of combusting the waste versus the health risk from pollutants emitted during combustion. Waste Incineration and Public Health informs the emerging debate with the most up-to-date information available on incineration, pollution, and human healthâ€"along with expert conclusions and recommendations for further research and improvement of such areas as risk communication. The committee provides details on: Processes involved in incineration and how contaminants are released. Environmental dynamics of contaminants and routes of human exposure. Tools and approaches for assessing possible human health effects. Scientific concerns pertinent to future regulatory actions. The book also examines some of the social, psychological, and economic factors that affect the communities where incineration takes place and addresses the problem of uncertainty and variation in predicting the health effects of incineration processes.

This volume breaks new ground in applying the current body of knowledge in the study of pharmaceuticals, personal care products and their environmental impact to the assessment of the magnitude and extent of the use of illicit drugs at the local community level. It offers new insights on the use of environmental monitoring and includes discussion on waste treatment, ecotoxicological issues, and risk assessment.