Background: The environmental health community needs transparent, methodologically rigorous, and rapid approaches for updating human health risk assessments. These assessments often contain reference values for cancer and/or noncancer effects. Increasingly, the use of systematic review methods are preferred when developing these assessments. Systematic evidence maps are a type of analysis that has the potential to be very helpful in the update process, especially when combined with machine-learning software advances designed to expedite the process of conducting a review. Objectives: To evaluate the applicability of evidence mapping to determine whether new evidence is likely to result in a change to an existing health reference value, using inhalation exposure to the air pollutant acrolein as a case example. Methods: New literature published since the 2008 California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) Reference Exposure Level (REL) for acrolein was assessed. Systematic review methods were used to search the literature and screening included the use of machine-learning software. The Populations, Exposures, Comparators and Outcomes (PECO) criteria were kept broad to identify studies that characterized acute and chronic exposure and could be informative for hazard characterization. Studies that met the PECO criteria after full-text review were briefly summarized before their suitability for chronic point of departure (POD) derivation and calculation of a reference value was considered. Studies considered potentially suitable underwent a targeted evaluation to determine their suitability for use in dose–response analysis. Results: Over 15,000 studies were identified from scientific databases. Both machine-learning and manual screening processes were used to identify 60 studies considered PECO-relevant after full-text review. Most of these PECO-relevant studies were short-term exposure animal studies (acute or less than 1 month of exposure) and considered less suitable for deriving a chronic reference value when compared to the subchronic study in rats used in the 2008 OEHHA assessment. Thirteen epidemiological studies were identified but had limitations in the exposure assessment that made them less suitable for dose–response compared to the subchronic rat study. Among the 13 studies, there were four controlled trial studies that have the potential to be informative for future acute reference value derivation. Thus, the 2008 subchronic rat study used by OEHHA appears to still be the most appropriate study for chronic reference value derivation. In addition, advances in dosimetric modeling for gases, including new evidence pertinent to acrolein, could be considered when updating existing acrolein toxicity values. Conclusions: Evidence mapping is a very useful tool to assess the need for updating an assessment based on understanding...
Few studies have measured COVID-19 seroprevalence in North Carolina, especially among rural, Black, and Hispanic/Latino communities that have been heavily affected. Antibody results show high rates of COVID-19 among industrial livestock operation workers and their household members.
Industrial livestock operations (ILOs), particularly processing facilities, emerged as centers of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreaks in spring 2020. Confirmed cases of COVID-19 underestimate true prevalence. To investigate prevalence of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, we enrolled 279 participants in North Carolina from February 2021 to July 2022: 90 from households with at least one ILO worker (ILO), 97 from high-ILO intensity areas (ILO neighbors – ILON), and 92 from metropolitan areas (Metro). Participants provided a saliva swab we analyzed for SARS-CoV-2 IgG using a multiplex immunoassay. Prevalence of infection-induced IgG (positive for nucleocapsid and receptor binding domain) was higher among ILO (63%) compared to ILON (42.9%) and Metro (48.7%) participants (prevalence ratio [PR] =1.38; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.06, 1.80; ref. ILON and Metro combined). Prevalence of infection-induced IgG was also higher among ILO participants compared to an Atlanta healthcare worker cohort (PR=2.45, 95% CI: 1.8, 3.3) and a general population cohort in North Carolina (PRs 6.37-10.67). Infection-induced IgG prevalence increased over the study period. Participants reporting not masking in public in the past two weeks had higher infection-induced IgG prevalence (78.6%) compared to participants reporting masking (49.3%) (PR=1.59; 95% CI: 1.19, 2.13). Lower education, more people per bedroom, Hispanic/Latino ethnicity, and more contact with people outside the home were also associated with higher infection-induced IgG prevalence. Similar proportions of ILO (51.6%), ILON (48.4%), and Metro (55.4%) participants completed the COVID-19 primary vaccination series; median completion was more than four months later for ILO compared to ILON and Metro participants.
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