Do Carpets Impair Indoor Air Quality and Cause Adverse Health Outcomes: A Review

Several earlier studies have shown the presence of more dust and allergens in carpets compared with non-carpeted floors. At the same time, adverse effects of carpeted floors on perceived indoor air quality as well as worsening of symptoms in individuals with asthma and allergies were reported. Avoiding extensive carpet use in offices, schools, kindergartens and bedrooms has therefore been recommended by several health authorities. More recently, carpet producers have argued that former assessments were obsolete and that modern rugs are unproblematic, even for those with asthma and allergies. To investigate whether the recommendation to be cautious with the use of carpets is still valid, or whether there are new data supporting that carpet flooring do not present a problem for indoor air quality and health, we have reviewed the literature on this matter. We have not found updated peer reviewed evidence that carpeted floor is unproblematic for the indoor environment. On the contrary, also more recent data support that carpets may act as a repository for pollutants which may become resuspended upon activity in the carpeted area. Also, the use of carpets is still linked to perception of reduced indoor air quality as well as adverse health effects as previously reported. To our knowledge, there are no publications that report on deposition of pollutants and adverse health outcomes associated with modern rugs. However, due to the three-dimensional structure of carpets, any carpet will to some extent act like a sink. Thus, continued caution should still be exercised when considering the use of wall-to-wall carpeted floors in schools, kindergartens and offices, as well as in children’s bedrooms unless special needs indicate that carpets are preferableAcknowledgments: This study has not received any funding or grants. NIPH cover the costs for publishing in open access.publishedVersio

Long-term low-level ambient air pollution exposure and risk of lung cancer - A pooled analysis of 7 European cohorts.

BACKGROUND/AIM: Ambient air pollution has been associated with lung cancer, but the shape of the exposure-response function - especially at low exposure levels - is not well described. The aim of this study was to address the relationship between long-term low-level air pollution exposure and lung cancer incidence. METHODS: The "Effects of Low-level Air Pollution: a Study in Europe" (ELAPSE) collaboration pools seven cohorts from across Europe. We developed hybrid models combining air pollution monitoring, land use data, satellite observations, and dispersion model estimates for nitrogen dioxide (NO2), fine particulate matter (PM2.5), black carbon (BC), and ozone (O3) to assign exposure to cohort participants' residential addresses in 100 m by 100 m grids. We applied stratified Cox proportional hazards models, adjusting for potential confounders (age, sex, calendar year, marital status, smoking, body mass index, employment status, and neighborhood-level socio-economic status). We fitted linear models, linear models in subsets, Shape-Constrained Health Impact Functions (SCHIF), and natural cubic spline models to assess the shape of the association between air pollution and lung cancer at concentrations below existing standards and guidelines. RESULTS: The analyses included 307,550 cohort participants. During a mean follow-up of 18.1 years, 3956 incident lung cancer cases occurred. Median (Q1, Q3) annual (2010) exposure levels of NO2, PM2.5, BC and O3 (warm season) were 24.2 µg/m3 (19.5, 29.7), 15.4 µg/m3 (12.8, 17.3), 1.6 10-5m-1 (1.3, 1.8), and 86.6 µg/m3 (78.5, 92.9), respectively. We observed a higher risk for lung cancer with higher exposure to PM2.5 (HR: 1.13, 95% CI: 1.05, 1.23 per 5 µg/m3). This association was robust to adjustment for other pollutants. The SCHIF, spline and subset analyses suggested a linear or supra-linear association with no evidence of a threshold. In subset analyses, risk estimates were clearly elevated for the subset of subjects with exposure below the EU limit value of 25 µg/m3. We did not observe associations between NO2, BC or O3 and lung cancer incidence. CONCLUSIONS: Long-term ambient PM2.5 exposure is associated with lung cancer incidence even at concentrations below current EU limit values and possibly WHO Air Quality Guidelines

Sykdomsbyrde som følge av luftforurensning i Oslo

Source at https://www.fhi.no/.Arbeidet i denne rapporten er et oppdrag fra Statens vegvesen i forbindelse med revisjon av verdsetting av luftkvalitet. Oppdraget var å bidra til at helsevirkninger av luftforurensning i større grad kan inkluderes i fremtidig økonomisk verdsetting av luftforurensning. Folkehelseinstituttet (FHI) har gjennomført beregninger av sykdomsbyrde som følge av luftforurensning i Oslo. Estimater på for tidlige dødsfall, helsetap og tapte leveår som tilskrives luftforurensning presenteres og diskuteres i denne rapporten

Low levels of antibodies for the oral bacterium Tannerella forsythia predict cardiovascular disease mortality in men with myocardial infarction: A prospective cohort study

Antibody levels to periodontal pathogens in prediction of cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality were explored using data from a health survey in Oslo in 2000 (Oslo II-study) with 12 1/2 years follow-up. IgG antibodies to four common periodontal pathogens; Tannerella forsythia (TF), Porphyromonas gingivalis (PG), and Treponema denticola (TD) all termed collectively the “red complex”, and Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans (AA) were analysed. The study sample consisted of 1172 men drawn from a cohort of 6,530 men who participated in the Oslo II-study, where they provided information on medical and dental history. Of the study sample, 548 men had reported prior myocardial infarction (MI) at baseline whereas the remaining 624 men were randomly drawn from the ostensibly healthy participants for comparative analyses. Dental anamnestic information included tooth extractions and oral infections. An inverse relation was found for trend by the quartile risk level of TF predicting CVD mortality, p-value for trend = 0.017. Comparison of the first to fourth quartile of TF antibodies resulted in hazard ratio (HR) = 1.82, 95% confidence interval 1.12–2.94, p = 0.015, adjusted for age, education, diabetes, daily smoking, and systolic blood pressure. Specificity comparing decile 1 to deciles 2–10 of TF predicting mortality was 92.3%. We found an increased HR by low levels of antibodies to the bacterium T. forsythia predicting CVD mortality in a 12 ½ years follow-up in persons who had experienced an MI but not among non-MI men. This novel finding constitutes a plausible causal link between oral infections and CVD mortality

Air Quality For All : Nordic air quality web-conference

A group of Nordic air quality researchers organised 10-11th of June 2020 a web-conference on Nordic air quality research for civil servants and the general audience. The name of the conference was Air Quality For All - A Nordic air quality conference (AQ4ALL), and it included an overview of research from three air quality research programmes with active Nordic participation. Presentations were made by researchers from the Swedish Clean Air and Climate (SCAC) research programme, the Nordic-WelfAir (NWA) research project, as well as the EU-funded project Action on Black Carbon in the Arctic (EUA-BCA). The following themes were discussed:• Air quality effects on the Nordic welfare system, • Nordic air pollution and the Arctic climate – effects and solutions, • Air pollution effects on public health and the environmentThis report gives an overview of the key messages from the projects

Agreement between self-reported and registry-based use of sleep medications and tranquilizers

Purpose The purpose of the present study was to assess the agreement between self‐reported use of sleep medications and tranquilizers and dispensed hypnotics and anxiolytics. Methods Self‐reported medication use was obtained from the population‐based survey Health and Environment in Oslo (HELMILO) (2009‐2010) (n = 13 019). Data on dispensed hypnotics and anxiolytics were obtained from the Norwegian Prescription Database (NorPD). As measures of validity, we calculated sensitivity and specificity using both self‐reports and prescription records as the reference standard. Furthermore, we calculated Cohen's kappa. Current self‐reported medication use was compared with prescription data in time windows of both 100 and 200 days preceding questionnaire completion. Results The highest sensitivity was observed for current sleep medication use in the 100‐day time window (sensitivity = 0.76, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.74, 0.79) when using prescription records as the reference standard. Sensitivity was generally lower for tranquilizers compared with sleep medications. Cohen's kappa showed the highest agreement for the 200‐day time window with substantial agreement for sleep medications (kappa = 0.64; 95% CI: 0.62, 0.67) and moderate agreement for tranquilizers (kappa = 0.45; 95% CI: 0.41, 0.48). Conclusions The present study suggests moderate to substantial agreement between self‐reported use of sleep medications and tranquilizers and dispensed drugs in a general adult population. The magnitude of agreement varied according to drug category and time window. Since self‐reported and registry‐based use of these drug classes does not match each other accurately, limitations of each data source should be considered when such medications are applied as the exposure or outcome in epidemiologic studies