Search results for "Environmental Monitoring"
showing 10 items of 609 documents
Concentration and reference interval of trace elements in human hair from students living in Palermo, Sicily (Italy).
2010
Trace element contents in specimens of hair collected from 137 children aged 11–13 years old, living in Palermo (Sicily, Italy) were determined by ICP-MS. This work reports analytical data for the following 19 elements: Al, As, Ba, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Li, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, Rb, Sb, Se, Sr, U, V and Zn. The most abundant chemical elements were zinc and copper (Zn > Cu), with concentrations exceeding 10microg/g (Zn = 189.2microg/g; Cu= 22.9microg/g). Other elements with concentrations greater than 1microg/g were, in order of abundance, Al > Sr > Ba > Pb. The remaining elements were all below 1microg/g. The average elemental concentrations in hair were statistically compared by Kolmogorov–Smirnov’s t…
Trace elements in scalp hair of children living in differing environmental contexts in Sicily (Italy)
2012
We present here data about trace elements in human scalp hair samples to test whether they are valuable to reflect environmental exposure and contamination by trace elements. The study compares contents of trace elements in scalp hair from a total of 336 children, aged 11–13 years old, living in various geographical areas of Sicily (southern Italy) characterized by differing environmental conditions. Nineteen elements (Al, As, Ba, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Li, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, Rb, Sb, Se, Sr, U, V and Zn) were determined by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Coverage intervals (CI) formulated by the elemental composition of hair samples from the Palermo subjects were compared with …
Biomonitoring exposure assessment to contemporary pesticides in a school children population of Spain
2013
The exposure to pesticides amongst school-aged children (6-11 years old) was assessed in this study. One hundred twenty-five volunteer children were selected from two public schools located in an agricultural and in an urban area of Valencia Region, Spain. Twenty pesticide metabolites were analyzed in children's urine as biomarkers of exposure to organophosphate (OP) insecticides, synthetic pyrethroid insecticides, and herbicides. These data were combined with a survey to evaluate the main predictors of pesticide exposure in the children's population. A total of 15 metabolites were present in the urine samples with detection frequencies (DF) ranging from 5% to 86%. The most frequently detec…
Biomonitoring of 20 elements in urine of children. Levels and predictors of exposure
2015
The levels of 20 elements in the urine of one hundred twenty children (Ages 6-11) from an agricultural and an urban area of Valencia Region, Spain, were assessed. The seven essential elements analysed (Co, Cu, Mn, Mo, Se, V, Zn) presented average concentrations (geometric mean) ranging from 0.22 µg L(-1) to 63 µg L(-1) (except Zn with 525 µg L(-1)). Eight out of the 13 toxic elements determined (As, Ba, Cd, Cs, Ni, Pb, Tl, Hg) had frequencies of detection of 100%, with geometric mean concentrations from 0.17 µg L(-1) (Cd) to 33.6 µg L(-1) (As). About 18% of children revealed urinary levels of total As higher than the normal range of 100 µg L(-1) accepted by the ATSDR. The urine analysis was…
Trace elements in scalp hair of children chronically exposed to volcanic activity (Mt. Etna, Italy)
2014
Abstract The aim of this survey was to use scalp hair as a biomonitor to evaluate the environmental exposure to metals and metalloids of schoolchildren living around the Mt. Etna area, and to verify whether the degree of human exposure to trace elements is subject to changes in local environmental factors. Twenty trace elements were determined in 376 samples of scalp hair from schoolboys (11–13 years old) of both genders, living in ten towns located around the volcanic area of Mt. Etna (Sicily). The results were compared with those (215 samples) from children living in areas of Sicily characterized by a different geological setting (reference site). As, U and V showed much higher concentrat…
Method development for the simultaneous determination of polybrominated, polychlorinated, mixed polybrominated/chlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibe…
2013
An analytical methodology was developed for simultaneous determination of five groups of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) including polybrominated, polychlorinated and mixed brominated-chlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PBDD/DFs, PCDD/DFs and PXDD/DFs, respectively), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in fish samples. The presented analytical approach was based on well established and robust method for determination of PCDD/DFs and PCBs, which was augmented with gas chromatography coupled to high resolution mass spectrometry (GC-HRMS) to include PBDEs, as well as poorly investigated PBDD/DFs and PXDD/DFs at toxicologically significa…
Air Pollution During Pregnancy and Childhood Cognitive and Psychomotor Development: Six European Birth Cohorts
2014
Background: Accumulating evidence from laboratory animal and human studies suggests that air pollution exposure during pregnancy affects cognitive and psychomotor development in childhood. Methods: We analyzed data from 6 European population-based birth cohorts-GENERATI ON R (The Netherlands), DUISBURG (Germany), EDEN (France), GASPII (Italy), RHEA (Greece), and INMA (Spain)-that recruited mother-infant pairs from 1997 to 2008. Air pollution levels-nitrogen oxides (NO2, NOx) in all regions and particulate matter (PM) with diameters of <2.5, <10, and 2.5-10 mu m (PM2.5, PM10, and PMcoarse, respectively) and PM2.5 absorbance in a subgroup-at birth addresses were estimated by land-use regressi…
Bioaccumulation of persistent organic pollutants in the gonads of Barbus barbus (Linnaeus, 1758)
2020
Maps with grey or even white spaces are still present in spite of the fact that persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are at the forefront of research in aquatic toxicology and environmental safety. This is also the case for the Mureș River basin. The intensive use of industrial substances such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and pesticides such as organochlorine compounds (OCPs) has caused global contamination of the aquatic environment. In our study we have found very high concentrations of both PCBs (2110-169,000 ng/g lipid weight ΣPCB, 1950-166,000 ng/g lipid weight ΣPCB7) and OCPs (1130-7830 ng/g lipid weight ΣDDT, 47.6-2790 ng/g lipid weight ΣHCH, 5.53-35.6 ng/g lipid weight ΣChlor…
Synergistic Effects of Ambient Temperature and Air Pollution on Health in Europe: Results from the PHASE Project
2018
We studied the potential synergy between air pollution and meteorology and their impact on mortality in nine European cities with data from 2004 to 2010. We used daily series of Apparent Temperature (AT), measurements of particulate matter (PM10), ozone (O3), and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and total non-accidental, cardiovascular, and respiratory deaths. We applied Poisson regression for city-specific analysis and random effects meta-analysis to combine city-specific results, separately for the warm and cold seasons. In the warm season, the percentage increase in all deaths from natural causes per °
Influence of landscape composition and diversity on contaminant flux in terrestrial food webs: a case study of trace metal transfer to European black…
2012
13 pages; International audience; Although understanding the influence of the spatial arrangement of habitats and interacting communities on the processes of pollutant flux and impacts is critical for exposure and risk assessment, to date few studies have been devoted to this emergent topic. We tested the hypothesis that landscape composition and diversity affect the transfer of trace metals to vertebrates. Bioaccumulation of Cd and Pb in blood and feathers of European blackbirds Turdus merula (n=138) was studied over a smelter-impacted area (Northern France). Landscape composition (type and occurrence of the different habitats) and diversity (number of different habitat types and the propo…