Environmental pollution by persistent toxic substances and health risk in an industrial area of China

Abstract

Soil is an important environmental medium that is closely associated with humans and their health. Despite this, very few studies have measured toxicants in soils, and associated them with health risks in humans. An assessment of health effects from exposure to contaminants in soils surrounding industrial areas of chemical production and storage is important. This article aims at determining pollution characteristics of persistent toxic substances (PTS) in an industrial area in China to unravel the relationship between soil pollution by PTS and human health. One hundred and five soil samples were collected and 742 questionnaires were handed out to residents living in and around an industrial area around Bohai Bay, Tianjin in Northern China. Concentrations of organochlorine pesticides and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were determined in soil. Mann-Whitney U and binary multivariate nonconditional logistic regression models were employed to analyze the relationship between health indicators of local residents and contaminant levels. Odds ratio (OR) and a 95% confidence interval (CI) for health incidences were also calculated. The average concentrations of DDT (73.9 ng/g), HCH (654 ng/g) and PAHs (1225 ng/g) were relatively high in the industrial area. Residents living in the chemical industry parks were exposed to a higher levels of PTS than those living outside the chemical industry parks. This exposure was associated with a higher risk of breast cancer (OR 1.87, 95% CI 0.12-30.06), stomach cancer (OR 1.87, 95% CI 0.26-13.41), dermatitis (OR 1.72, 95% CI 1.05-2.80), gastroenteritis (OR 1.59, 95% CI 0.94-2.68), and pneumonia (OR 1.05, 95% CI 0.58-1.89).

Estimation of Toxicity Equivalency and Probabilistic Health Risk on Lifetime Daily Intake of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons from Urban Residential Soils

“…Several studies have shown that PAH-contaminated soils can enter the human body through different pathways of ingestion, inhalation, and dermal absorption, and can cause human health effects (ATSDR 1995). Li et al (2011) analyzed the relationship between health indicators of local residents and the PAHs levels in soils and found higher odds ratio and confidence interval for breast cancer, stomach cancer, dermatitis, gastroenteritis, and pneumonia. Cancer risk to human adults and children due to PAH exposure through soils has been reported worldwide by several workers (Zhang et al 2011;Diggs et al 2011;Wang et al 2011;Jia et al 2012;Obiri et al 2013;Williams et al 2013;Jiao et al 2013).…”

Serum cadmium levels in a sample of blood donors in the Western Amazon, Brazil, 2010-2011

“…These indicators, associated with early and late biochemical and physiological alterations, provide information used to estimate the risk to human health 19 . By measuring these indicators, we can determine with relative accuracy the diseases resulting from these exposures 20,21 . Biomarkers and human biomonitoring have thus emerged to develop practical methods for the direct measurement of biological and toxicological effects or responses to human exposure to xenobiotics 22 .…”

Source identification and health risk assessment of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in the topsoils of typical petrochemical industrial area in Beijing, China

“…In recent years, a lot of researchers have reported the concentrations, distributions and risk assessments of POPs in the topsoils of urban and industrial areas (Albanese et al, 2015;Dömötörová et al, 2012;Li et al, 2011;Nadal et al, 2011;Syed and Malik, 2011;Yuan et al, 2014). For an industrial heartland like Yanshan petrochemical area, POP contaminations of the topsoils may mainly resulted not only from emission of local industries but also from air inputs proceeding from the Beijing urban area .…”