Health Consequences of Environmental Exposures: Causal Thinking in Global Environmental Epidemiology

Abstract

The 2010 Global Burden of Disease estimates indicate a trend toward increasing years lived with disability from chronic noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Risk factors examined included smoking, diet, alcohol, drug abuse, and physical inactivity. By contrast, little consideration was given to accumulating evidence that exposures to environmental chemicals, psychosocial stress, and malnutrition during fetal development and across the life span also increase risk of NCDs. To address this gap, we undertook a narrative review of early-life environmental contributions to disease. We documented numerous etiologic associations. We propose that future GBD estimates use an expanded approach for assessing etiologic contributions of environmental exposures to recognized disease risk factors. We argue that broadening the definition of environmental disease, together with improved methods of assessing early life exposures and their health outcomes across the life span, will allow better understanding of causal associations and provide the incentives required to support strategies to control avoidable exposures and reduce disease risk.

An exposome perspective: Early-life events and immune development in a changing world

“…200 Environmental stressors that contribute to NCDs include ambient air pollution; indoor air pollution, primarily from burning biomass fuel for cooking and heating in low-and-middle income countries; widespread use of pesticides and agricultural chemicals; and industrial chemicals and exposure to hazardous waste, including improper practices in recycling electronic waste in the informal sector. [200][201][202][203][204][205] Perhaps the most avoidable environmental exposure that has major effects on child health, chronic disease, and immune development is tobacco smoking, especially during pregnancy. 206,207 Not all environmental stressors are manmade.…”

Occupational and Environmental Cancer

“…Air pollution can increase mortality or cause serious diseases with a potential danger for human health [3]. So, environmental pollution is one important cause of disease, death, and disability worldwide [4]. So that, WHO introduces air pollution to be responsible for almost 7 million mortality in the last year [5].…”

Health Consequences of Environmental Exposures in Early Life: Coping with a Changing World in the Post-MDG Era

“…Although some links have been made between exposures to specific chemicals during early life and later disease, as discussed previously, 4 further studies that include a wide range of scientific and biomedical disciplines are required to validate and understand these associations. For example, links between exposures to flame-retardant chemicals and attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder require study in larger populations, especially with detailed exposure assessments and consistent study designs and methods.…”

“…Diseases that may have at least some origin in exposures that happen during prenatal or early postnatal life were previously reviewed 4 and include asthma, leukemia, obesity, cardiovascular disease, cancer, lowered IQ, autism, schizophrenia, hypertension, and insulin resistance. Maternal intake of a variety of carcinogens and immunotoxicants leads to fetal exposure.…”