Exposure-Response Estimates for Diesel Engine Exhaust and Lung Cancer Mortality Based on Data from Three Occupational Cohorts

Background: Diesel engine exhaust (DEE) has recently been classified as a known human carcinogen. Objective: We derived a meta-exposure–response curve (ERC) for DEE and lung cancer mortality and estimated lifetime excess risks (ELRs) of lung cancer mortality based on assumed occupational and environmental exposure scenarios. Methods: We conducted a meta-regression of lung cancer mortality and cumulative exposure to elemental carbon (EC), a proxy measure of DEE, based on relative risk (RR) estimates reported by three large occupational cohort studies (including two studies of workers in the trucking industry and one study of miners). Based on the derived risk function, we calculated ELRs for several lifetime occupational and environmental exposure scenarios and also calculated the fractions of annual lung cancer deaths attributable to DEE. Results: We estimated a lnRR of 0.00098 (95% CI: 0.00055, 0.0014) for lung cancer mortality with each 1-μg/m3-year increase in cumulative EC based on a linear meta-regression model. Corresponding lnRRs for the individual studies ranged from 0.00061 to 0.0012. Estimated numbers of excess lung cancer deaths through 80 years of age for lifetime occupational exposures of 1, 10, and 25 μg/m3 EC were 17, 200, and 689 per 10,000, respectively. For lifetime environmental exposure to 0.8 μg/m3 EC, we estimated 21 excess lung cancer deaths per 10,000. Based on broad assumptions regarding past occupational and environmental exposures, we estimated that approximately 6% of annual lung cancer deaths may be due to DEE exposure. Conclusions: Combined data from three U.S. occupational cohort studies suggest that DEE at levels common in the workplace and in outdoor air appear to pose substantial excess lifetime risks of lung cancer, above the usually acceptable limits in the United States and Europe, which are generally set at 1/1,000 and 1/100,000 based on lifetime exposure for the occupational and general population, respectively. Citation: Vermeulen R, Silverman DT, Garshick E, Vlaanderen J, Portengen L, Steenland K. 2014. Exposure-response estimates for diesel engine exhaust and lung cancer mortality based on data from three occupational cohorts. Environ Health Perspect 122:172–177; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.130688

The Ethical Aspects of Exposome Research: A Systematic Review

In recent years, exposome research has been put forward as the next frontier for the study of human health and disease. Exposome research entails the analysis of the totality of environmental exposures and their corresponding biological responses within the human body. Increasingly, this is operationalized by big-data approaches to map the effects of internal as well as external exposures using smart sensors and multi-omics technologies. However, the ethical implications of exposome research are still only rarely discussed in the literature. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review of the academic literature regarding both the exposome and underlying research fields and approaches, to map the ethical aspects that are relevant to exposome research. We identify five ethical themes that are prominent in ethics discussions: the goals of exposome research, its standards, its tools, how it relates to study participants and the consequences of its products. Furthermore, we provide a number of general principles for how future ethics research can best make use of our comprehensive overview of the ethical aspects of exposome research. Lastly, we highlight three aspects of exposome research that are most in need of ethical reflection: the actionability of its findings, the epidemiological or clinical norms applicable to exposome research and the meaning and action-implications of bias

Крим в українських історичних піснях

Метою даної роботи є Кримські мотиви в історичних піснях. Тема широка, але ми розглянемо окремі її аспекти, взявши пісні про боротьбу з татарами і турками ХVI – XVII ст

Productivity and quality of Dutch hospitals during system reform

This study addresses the productivity of Dutch hospitals since the start of the health systems reform in 2005. We consider DEA based measures, which include efficiency and quality for the complete set of Dutch hospitals and present cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis. In particular, we consider how hospital efficiency has developed. As the reform created an environment of regulated competition, we pay special attention to relative efficiency. Our results suggest that the differences in efficiency among hospitals have become larger. In the years 2009–2010, the number of hospitals identified as (close to) efficient by DEA analysis decreased

Quantile regression to examine the association of air pollution with subclinical atherosclerosis in an adolescent population

Background: Air pollution has been associated with carotid intima-media thickness test (CIMT), a marker of subclinical atherosclerosis. To our knowledge, this is the first study to report an association between ambient air pollution and CIMT in a younger adolescent population. Objective: To investigate the associations beyond standard mean regression by using quantile regression to explore if associations occur at different percentiles of the CIMT distribution. Methods: We measured CIMT cross-sectionally at the age of 16 years in 363 adolescents participating in the Dutch PIAMA birth cohort. We fit separate quantile regressions to examine whether the associations of annual averages of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), fine particulate matter (PM2.5), PM2.5 absorbance (a marker for black carbon), PMcoarse and ultrafine particles up to age 14 assigned at residential addresses with CIMT varied across deciles of CIMT. False discovery rate corrections (FDR, p < 0.05 for statistical significance) were applied for multiple comparisons. We report quantile regression coefficients that correspond to an average change in CIMT (µm) associated with an interquartile range increase in the exposure. Results: PM2.5 absorbance exposure at birth was statistically significantly (FDR < 0.05) associated with a 6.23 µm (95% CI: 0.15, 12.3) higher CIMT per IQR increment in PM2.5 absorbance in the 10th quantile of CIMT but was not significantly related to other deciles within the CIMT distribution. For NO2 exposure we found similar effect sizes to PM2.5 absorbance, but with much wider confidence intervals. PM2.5 exposure was weakly positively associated with CIMT while PMcoarse and ultrafine did not display any consistent patterns. Conclusions: Early childhood exposure to ambient air pollution was suggestively associated with the CIMT distribution during adolescence. Since CIMT increases with age, mitigation strategies to reduce traffic-related air pollution early in life could possibly delay atherosclerosis and subsequently CVD development later in life

(On)begrensde Technologie

Er zijn voorspellingen gedaan, bijvoorbeeld door het World Economic Forum, dat we aan de vooravond van een ‘vierde industriële revolutie’ staan, die draait om het meer verbonden raken van informatie- en productieprocessen. Als dat zo is, zal dat maatschappelijke gevolgen voor Zuid-Holland en daarmee implicaties voor het beleid van de provincie hebben. De onderzoeksvraag van deze studie is dan ook: “Wat is de maatschappelijke [sociale, economische en ruimtelijke] invloed van nieuwe productie- en informatietechnologieën? En, hoe verandert dat de wijze waarop we als provincie aan de opgaven van de toekomst werken?”. Hiertoe hebben we een literatuurstudie over de potentiële maatschappelijke gevolgen van nieuwe technologie verricht en daarna in interactie met stakeholders en de provincie vier scenario’s ontwikkeld

Quantile regression to examine the association of air pollution with subclinical atherosclerosis in an adolescent population

Background: Air pollution has been associated with carotid intima-media thickness test (CIMT), a marker of subclinical atherosclerosis. To our knowledge, this is the first study to report an association between ambient air pollution and CIMT in a younger adolescent population. Objective: To investigate the associations beyond standard mean regression by using quantile regression to explore if associations occur at different percentiles of the CIMT distribution. Methods: We measured CIMT cross-sectionally at the age of 16 years in 363 adolescents participating in the Dutch PIAMA birth cohort. We fit separate quantile regressions to examine whether the associations of annual averages of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), fine particulate matter (PM2.5), PM2.5 absorbance (a marker for black carbon), PMcoarse and ultrafine particles up to age 14 assigned at residential addresses with CIMT varied across deciles of CIMT. False discovery rate corrections (FDR, p < 0.05 for statistical significance) were applied for multiple comparisons. We report quantile regression coefficients that correspond to an average change in CIMT (µm) associated with an interquartile range increase in the exposure. Results: PM2.5 absorbance exposure at birth was statistically significantly (FDR < 0.05) associated with a 6.23 µm (95% CI: 0.15, 12.3) higher CIMT per IQR increment in PM2.5 absorbance in the 10th quantile of CIMT but was not significantly related to other deciles within the CIMT distribution. For NO2 exposure we found similar effect sizes to PM2.5 absorbance, but with much wider confidence intervals. PM2.5 exposure was weakly positively associated with CIMT while PMcoarse and ultrafine did not display any consistent patterns. Conclusions: Early childhood exposure to ambient air pollution was suggestively associated with the CIMT distribution during adolescence. Since CIMT increases with age, mitigation strategies to reduce traffic-related air pollution early in life could possibly delay atherosclerosis and subsequently CVD development later in life

Wreck-и сорок першого року

Стаття присвячена корабельним втратам початкового періоду війни на Чорному морі. Аналізуються події, версії загибелі, історія пошуку і досліджень лідера „Москва”, пароплаву „Ленін”, есмінця „Фрунзе”, транспорту „Вірменія”, крейсера „Червона Україна”, суден, що приймали участь у Керченсько-Феодосійській операції.Статья посвящена корабельным потерям начального периода войны на Черном море. Анализируются события, версии гибели, история поиска и исследований лидера «Москва», парохода «Ленин», эсминца «Фрунзе», транспорта «Армения», крейсера «Червона Украина», судов, которые принимали участие в Керченско-Феодосийской операции.The article is devoted to the ship losses of initial period of Great Patriotic war on the Black sea. It analyzes the events, versions of death, history of search and researches of the leader „Moscow”, steamship „Lenin”, destroyer „Frunze”, transport „Armenia”, cruiser „Chervona Ukraine”, ships that took part in the Cerch-Feodosiya operation

Discovery of Novel Biomarkers by Microarray Analysis of Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cell Gene Expression in Benzene-Exposed Workers

Benzene is an industrial chemical and component of gasoline that is an established cause of leukemia. To better understand the risk benzene poses, we examined the effect of benzene exposure on peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) gene expression in a population of shoe-factory workers with well-characterized occupational exposures using microarrays and real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). PBMC RNA was stabilized in the field and analyzed using a comprehensive human array, the U133A/B Affymetrix GeneChip set. A matched analysis of six exposed–control pairs was performed. A combination of robust multiarray analysis and ordering of genes using paired t-statistics, along with bootstrapping to control for a 5% familywise error rate, was used to identify differentially expressed genes in a global analysis. This resulted in a set of 29 known genes being identified that were highly likely to be differentially expressed. We also repeated these analyses on a smaller subset of 508 cytokine probe sets and found that the expression of 19 known cytokine genes was significantly different between the exposed and the control subjects. Six genes were selected for confirmation by real-time PCR, and of these, CXCL16, ZNF331, JUN, and PF4 were the most significantly affected by benzene exposure, a finding that was confirmed in a larger data set from 28 subjects. The altered expression was not caused by changes in the makeup of the PBMC fraction. Thus, microarray analysis along with real-time PCR confirmation reveals that altered expressions of CXCL16, ZNF331, JUN, and PF4 are potential biomarkers of benzene exposure