Addressing Pollution‐Related Global Environmental Health Burdens

Filippelli, Gabriel M.; Taylor, Mark Patrick

doi:10.1002/2017gh000119

Cited by 26 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Soils bear a legacy of hundreds to thousands of years of human occupation and industrialization (e.g., Bellinger, 2011;Chambers et al, 2016;Filippelli & Taylor, 2018). Some pollutants, including many metals with poor mobility in soil media (i.e., lead, cadmium, and copper), have soil residence times on the order of hundreds to thousands of years.…”

Section: Spatial Distribution Of Soil Pollutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…GeoHealth Soils are an enormous reservoir of lithogenic and atmospheric trace elements, some of which have been significantly adulterated by anthropogenic emissions and depositions, in particular lead for paints and leaded gasoline emissions (Ashrafzadeh et al, 2018;Filippelli & Taylor, 2018;Rouillon et al, 2017). Given that communities are so heavily invested in their own welfare and producing clean and safe food from a reliable source, they have proven to be an incredible resource for the biosensing of soils for urban trace metal contaminants.…”

Section: 1029/2018gh000167mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Lead-based paint is a critical component of the urban lead load, as this was used for centuries before being phased out during the twentieth century. Much of this lead is still on older housing stock but is anything but immobile, as the degrading paint deposits both indoors and outdoors near the house exterior, where values can be several times higher than the average for the property as a whole (Filippelli et al, 2018). Other issues, including zinc, can also be elevated at the house dripline, either due to inclusion in paint and/or to the airborne fallout that occurs at the home barrier (Filippelli et al, 2018).…”

Section: Housingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Much of this lead is still on older housing stock but is anything but immobile, as the degrading paint deposits both indoors and outdoors near the house exterior, where values can be several times higher than the average for the property as a whole (Filippelli et al, 2018). Other issues, including zinc, can also be elevated at the house dripline, either due to inclusion in paint and/or to the airborne fallout that occurs at the home barrier (Filippelli et al, 2018). Houses in urban (and indeed rural) environment can also contain myriad indoor issues, including a host of humanproduced chemicals (PFOAs, VOCs, and others; Filippelli, 2019), the toxicology of which is poorly constrained.…”

Section: Housingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The quality of air, water, and land is diminishing in many parts of the world because of increasing global pollution (Landrigan et al, 2017;Shaffer et al, 2019), and this degradation is being borne disproportionately by poorer nations without adequate environmental protections in place for their pollutions (Myers et al, 2017). Much of this pollution has a long lifespan in the environment, and thus, if a pollution revolution occurs tomorrow, the legacy contaminants will remain in our environment for centuries (Filippelli, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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New Approaches to Identifying and Reducing the Global Burden of Disease From Pollution

et al. 2020

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Pollution from multiple sources causes significant disease and death worldwide. Some sources are legacy, such as heavy metals accumulated in soils, and some are current, such as particulate matter. Because the global burden of disease from pollution is so high, it is important to identify legacy and current sources and to develop and implement effective techniques to reduce human exposure. But many limitations exist in our understanding of the distribution and transport processes of pollutants themselves, as well as the complicated overprint of human behavior and susceptibility. New approaches are being developed to identify and eliminate pollution in multiple environments. Community-scale detection of geogenic arsenic and fluoride in Bangladesh is helping to map the distribution of these harmful elements in drinking water. Biosensors such as bees and their honey are being used to measure heavy metal contamination in cities such as Vancouver and Sydney. Drone-based remote sensors are being used to map metal hot spots in soils from former mining regions in Zambia and Mozambique. The explosion of low-cost air monitors has allowed researchers to build dense air quality sensing networks to capture ephemeral and local releases of harmful materials, building on other developments in personal exposure sensing. And citizen science is helping communities without adequate resources measure their own environments and in this way gain agency in controlling local pollution exposure sources and/or alerting authorities to environmental hazards. The future of GeoHealth will depend on building on these developments and others to protect a growing population from multiple pollution exposure risks. Plain Language SummaryThe health burdens of legacy contaminants, and the continuing global health burdens of current pollution, are crippling both global health and well-being. Much of the exposure science on these relatively well-studied pollutants is known, as is the general toxicity of past pollutants. But there is a great distance between understanding the toxicity and exposure sources of environmental pollutants and applying that knowledge in practical and just ways. This contribution summarizes several major repositories and ongoing sources of soil, dust, and air pollution and addresses the harmful effects from exposure to these. We also highlight some examples of the future of GeoHealth research in this area by providing case studies of current novel approaches that focus on bridging the science of pollution sources and distribution with real applications at the community level to reduce pollution's role in the global burden of disease.

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Section: Spatial Distribution Of Soil Pollutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: 1029/2018gh000167mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Housingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Housingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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New Approaches to Identifying and Reducing the Global Burden of Disease From Pollution

et al. 2020

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Road sediment, an underutilized material in environmental science research: A review of perspectives on United States studies with international context

Dietrich

2022

Preprint

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Road sediment is a pervasive environmental medium that acts as both source and sink for a variety of natural and anthropogenic particles and often is enriched in heavy metals. Road sediment is generally understudied in the United States (U.S.) relative to other environmental media and compared to countries such as China and the United Kingdom (U.K.). However, the U.S. is an ideal target for these studies due to the diverse climates and wealth of geo-chemical, socioeconomic, demographic, and health data. This review outlines the existing U.S. road sediment literature while also providing key international perspectives and context. Furthermore, the most comprehensive table of U.S. road sediment studies to date is presented, which includes elemental concentrations , sample size, size fraction, collection and analytical methods, as well as digestion procedure. Overall, there were observed differences in studies by sampling time period for elemental concentrations, but not necessarily by climate in the U.S. Other key concepts addressed in this road sediment review include the processes controlling its distribution, the variety of nomenclature used, an-thropogenic enrichment of heavy metals, electron microscopy, health risk assessments , remediation, and future directions of road sediment investigations. Going forward, it is recommended that studies with a higher geographic diversity are performed that consider smaller cities and rural areas. Furthermore, environmental justice must be a focus as community science studies of road sediment can elucidate pollution issues impacting areas of high need. Finally, this review calls for consistency in sampling, data reporting, and nomenclature to effectively expand work on understudied elements, particles, and background sediments.

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