The Taiwan Birth Panel Study: a prospective cohort study for environmentally- related child health

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Taiwan Birth Panel Study (TBPS) is a prospective follow-up study to investigate the development of child health and disease in relation to in-utero and/or early childhood environmental exposures. The rationale behind the establishment of such a cohort includes the magnitude of potential environmental exposures, the timing of exposure window, fatal and children's susceptibility to toxicants, early exposure delayed effects, and low-level or unknown neurodevelopmental toxicants.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A total of 486 mother-infant paired was enrolled from April 2004 to January 2005 in this study. Maternal blood before delivery, placenta and umbilical cord blood at birth, and mothers' urine after delivery were collected. The follow-up was scheduled at birth, 4, 6 months, and 1, 2, 3 and 5 years. The children's blood, urine, hair, and saliva were collected at 2 years of age and children's urine was collected at 5 years of age as well. The study has been approved by the ethical committee of National Taiwan University Hospital. All the subjects signed the inform consent on entering the study and each of the follow up.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Through this prospective birth cohort, the main health outcomes were focused on child growth, neurodevelopment, behaviour problem and atopic diseases. We investigated the main prenatal and postnatal factors including smoking, heavy metals, perfluorinated chemicals, and non-persistent pesticides under the consideration of interaction of the environment and genes.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This cohort study bridges knowledge gaps and answers unsolved issues in the low-level, prenatal or postnatal, and multiple exposures, genetic effect modification, and the initiation and progression of "environmentally-related childhood diseases."</p

Validation of a recording system for computer pointing device activity

This study reports on the development of the pointing device activity monitoring software, Mlog, which is used to assess elements of computer use such as pointing device use time. The Mlog monitoring program was written with Virtual C++ and is 1.59 MB in size. It is applicable for computers equipped with computer processing units (CPUs) of 1 GHz or faster, and records pointing device activity at the millisecond level. The accuracy, precision, and reliability of the Mlog monitoring program were tested by comparing Mlog-recorded activity time intervals, for example, the time interval between pressing and releasing the pointing device key, against oscilloscope-recorded pointing device electric signals. For most tested time intervals, the Mlog monitoring program's margin of error for accuracy was within +/-0.50%, and it boasted precision error rate of less than 1.00%. Correlation coefficients between the Mlog recordings and the references were all greater than 0.99905, with the highest values observed for dragging actions. For most tested time intervals, the results of the reliability test showed that their intraclass correlation coefficients were higher than 0 .95, with few less than 0.90 for those with relatively longer tested time intervals. Linear regression analyses indicated that the pointing device clicking action time intervals recorded by the Mlog monitoring program were very close to the reference values and not affected by CPU speed and memory capacity, computer system loadings of software programs in operation, or types of pointing device key action. In conclusion, the Mlog monitoring program was validated as an accurate tool for monitoring pointing device activity during computer work. Future study is warranted to examine the influences of idle time threshold for electronic activity monitoring, passive computer tasks, and job type on the performance of the program in field studies. Relevance to industry: The Mlog monitoring program was validated as accurate in measuring pointing device activity during computer work, providing an indirect and supplemental exposure indices for those traditional ergonomic measurements for physical loading assessment

LIP LEAD AS AN ALTERNATIVE MEASURE FOR LEAD EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT OF LEAD BATTERY ASSEMBLY WORKERS

This study investigated lead exposures of lead battery assembly workers in Taiwan. A special attempt was made to evaluate the use of lip lead as an alternative index for occupational lead exposure. Ninety-six of 113 workers from a lead battery plant were recruited as study subjects. Air lead; lead loadings on workers' sleeves, gloves, hands, cheeks, and lips, and blood lead were determined for exposure assessment. A questionnaire also was administered to collect information on work history, suspected exogenous lead sources, and personal behavior and activities. Geometric moans of total air lead at different subareas ranged from 0.070 (2.5 geometric standard deviation [GSD]) to 0.159 (1.8 GSD) mg/m(3). Geometric means of respirable air lead level for different subgroups of workers varied from 0.009 (2.0 GSD) to 0.032 (1.9 GSD) mg/m(3), whereas those of the blood lead level ranged from 22.4 (1.3 GSD) to 44.5 (1.3 GSD) mug/dL. The heaviest lead loadings were found for plate-processing workers (e.g., 66.4 [1.5 GSD] on gloves, 0.80 [3.7 GSD] on cheeks, and 0.79 [3.2 GSD] mug/cm( 2)) on bare-hands after washing. Blood lead level was significantly correlated with lead levels in air, lead loadings on lips, and bare hands after washing (r=0.24-0.30) . Results of multiple regression analysis showed that only lip lead had a significant effect on the blood lead, whereas respirable air lead and personal behavior had only mild effects in this model. It was concluded that lip lead level may be used as an alternative index of lead exposure to facilitate the estimation of lead uptake through ingestion