The public health effects of urban parks – results from a systematic review (original) (raw)
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BACKGROUND: Although Belgium was once a major international manufacturer of asbestos products, asbestos-related diseases in the country have remained scarcely researched. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study is to provide a descriptive analysis of Belgian mesothelioma mortality rates in order to improve the understanding of asbestos health hazards from an international perspective. METHODS: Temporal and geographical analyses were performed on cause-specific mortality data (1969-2009) using quantitative demographic measures. Results were compared to recent findings on global mesothelioma deaths. RESULTS: Belgium has one of the highest mesothelioma mortality rates in the world, following the UK, Australia, and Italy. With a progressive increase of male mesothelioma deaths in the mid-1980s, large differences in mortality rates between sexes are apparent. Mesothelioma deaths are primarily concentrated in geographic areas with proximity to former asbestos industries. CONCLUSIONS: Asbestos mortality in Belgium has been underestimated for decades. Our findings suggest that the location of asbestos industries is correlated with rates of mesothelioma, underlining the need to avert future asbestos exposure by thorough screening of potential contaminated sites and by pursuing a global ban on asbestos.
Asbestos: use, bans and disease burden in Europe
Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2014
European countries were defined as the 53 countries in the European Region of WHO. Data on raw asbestos in these countries were obtained from the database of the United States Geological Survey 5,6 and its updated data file (RL Virta, United States Geological Survey, personal communication, March 6, 2013). The definition of use-production plus import minus export-followed that of the United States Geological Survey. 5 Data on asbestos use by country were available in 10-year intervals for 1920-1970, in 5-year intervals for 1970-1995 and annually for 1995-2012. We treated a reported negative value of asbestos use (e.g. reflecting storage from previous years) as zero. For years lacking data, reported data from the closest years were interpolated. We also retrieved information on the national status of asbestos bans 21,22 , ratification of the ILO Asbestos Convention 23 and health system ranking. 24 Data on asbestos-related diseases were extracted from the WHO mortality database; 25 these included the number of deaths recorded as mesothelioma (International Classification Objective To analyse national data on asbestos use and related diseases in the European Region of the World Health Organization (WHO). Methods For each of the 53 countries, per capita asbestos use (kg/capita/year) and age-adjusted mortality rates (deaths/million persons/ year) due to mesothelioma and asbestosis were calculated using the databases of the United States Geological Survey and WHO, respectively. Countries were further categorized by ban status: early-ban (ban adopted by 2000, n = 17), late-ban (ban adopted 2001-2013, n = 17), and no-ban (n = 19). Findings Between 1920-2012, the highest per capita asbestos use was found in the no-ban group. After 2000, early-ban and late-ban groups reduced their asbestos use levels to less than or equal to 0.1 kg/capita/year, respectively, while the no-ban group maintained a very high use at 2.2 kg/capita/year. Between 1994 and 2010, the European Region registered 106 180 deaths from mesothelioma and asbestosis, accounting for 60% of such deaths worldwide. In the early-ban and late-ban groups, 16/17 and 15/17 countries, respectively, reported mesothelioma data to WHO, while only 6/19 countries in the no-ban group reported such data. The age-adjusted mortality rates for mesothelioma for the early-ban, late-ban and no-ban groups were 9.4, 3.7 and 3.2 deaths/million persons/year, respectively. Asbestosis rates for the groups were 0.8, 0.9 and 1.5 deaths/million persons/year, respectively. Conclusion Within the European Region, the early-ban countries reported most of the current asbestos-related deaths. However, this might shift to the no-ban countries, since the disease burden will likely increase in these countries due the heavy use of asbestos.
Modeling Mesothelioma Risk Associated with Environmental Asbestos Exposure
Environmental Health Perspectives, 2007
BACKGROUND: Environmental asbestos pollution can cause malignant mesothelioma, but few studies have involved dose-response analyses with detailed information on occupational, domestic, and environmental exposures. OBJECTIVES: In the present study, we examined the spatial variation of mesothelioma risk in an area with high levels of asbestos pollution from an industrial plant, adjusting for occupational and domestic exposures. METHODS: This population-based case-control study included 103 incident cases of mesothelioma and 272 controls in 1987-1993 in the area around Casale Monferrato, Italy, where an important asbestos cement plant had been active for decades. Information collected included lifelong occupational and residential histories. Mesothelioma risk was estimated through logistic regression and a mixed additive-multiplicative model in which an additive scale was assumed for the risk associated with both residential distance from the plant and occupational exposures. The adjusted excess risk gradient by residential distance was modeled as an exponential decay with a threshold. RESULTS: Residents at the location of the asbestos cement factory had a relative risk for mesothelioma of 10.5 [95% confidence interval (CI), 3.8-50.1), adjusted for occupational and domestic exposures. Risk decreased rapidly with increasing distance from the factory, but at 10-km the risk was still 60% of its value at the source. The relative risk for occupational exposure was 6.0 (95% CI, 2.9-13.0), but this increased to 27.5 (95% CI, 7.8-153.4) when adjusted for residential distance. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides strong evidence that asbestos pollution from an industrial source greatly increases mesothelioma risk. Furthermore, relative risks from occupational exposure were underestimated and were markedly increased when adjusted for residential distance.
Lung cancer and mesothelioma risk assessment for a population environmentally exposed to asbestos
International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health, 2014
Asbestos-related cancer risk is usually a concern restricted to occupational settings. However, recent published data on asbestos environmental concentrations in Thetford Mines, a mining city in Quebec, Canada, provided an opportunity to undertake a prospective cancer risk assessment in the general population exposed to these concentrations. Using an updated Berman and Crump dose-response model for asbestos exposure, we selected population-specific potency factors for lung cancer and mesothelioma. These factors were evaluated on the basis of population-specific cancer data attributed to the studied area's past environmental levels of asbestos. We also used more recent population-specific mortality data along with the validated potency factors to generate corresponding inhalation unit risks. These unit risks were then combined with recent environmental measurements made in the mining town to calculate estimated lifetime risk of asbestos-induced lung cancer and mesothelioma. Depending on the chosen potency factors, the lifetime mortality risks varied between 0.7 and 2.6 per 100,000 for lung cancer and between 0.7 and 2.3 per 100,000 for mesothelioma. In conclusion, the estimated lifetime cancer risk for both cancers combined is close to Health Canada's threshold for "negligible" lifetime cancer risks. However, the risks estimated are subject to several uncertainties and should be confirmed by future mortality rates attributed to present day asbestos exposure.
Potential years of life lost (PYLL) caused by asbestos‐related diseases in the world
American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 2013
BackgroundWe applied the well‐established, but rather under‐utilized, indicator of Potential Years of Life Lost (PYLL) to estimate the global burden of mesothelioma and asbestosis.MethodsWe analyzed all deaths caused by mesothelioma and asbestosis that were reported by 82 and 55 countries, respectively, to the World Health Organization (WHO) from 1994 to 2010.ResultsThe 128,015 and 13,885 persons who died of mesothelioma and asbestosis, potentially lost a total of 2.18 million and 180,000 years of life (PYLL), or, an annual average PYLL of 201,000 years and 17,000 years, respectively. The average PYLL per decedent were 17.0 and 13.0 years for mesothelioma and asbestosis, respectively.ConclusionsThe current burden of asbestos‐related diseases (ARDs) in terms of PYLL is substantial. The future burden of ARDs can be eliminated by stopping the use of asbestos. Am. J. Ind. Med. 56:993–1000, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Annali dell'Istituto superiore di sanita, 2020
Malignant mesothelioma (MM) is a rare neoplasm caused by asbestos. Mortality from MM in ≤50 years old people, considering the long latency, is likely related to asbestos exposure in childhood. Mortality from MM (C45, ICD10 code) is described among ≤50 years (ys) old people in Italy, in 2003-2016. National and regional Standardized Rates (SRs) were computed by age-class. The North-South trend of regional SRs, increasing in >50ys age-class, showed a flat cline in ≤50ys old people. Municipal Standardized Mortality Ratios (SMRs) were computed, with respect to regional figures, for ≤50 ys old population. In Italy, 487 people ≤50 ys old died from MM, in 2003-2016 (2.5% of all MM deaths), corresponding to 35/year. The highest SMRs were observed in Northern Regions, the most industrialized areas. Exceeding SMRs were found in 10 municipalities where former asbestos-cement plants, shipyards, and a quarry contaminated by fluoro-edenite fibres were present. Early mortality from MM, proxy of ...
Mortality for Mesothelioma and Lung Cancer in a Cohort of Asbestos Cement Workers in BARI (Italy)
Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 2019
In this cohort mortality study we used an exposure index to evaluate individual cumulative exposure as proxy of asbestos dose and we evaluated change in cancer mortality pattern after long time since the end of exposure. Methods: We calculated standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) for several causes of death stratified by latency, cumulative exposure, and time since last exposure (TSLE). Results: Latency: we observed a peak and then a decrease in SMR for lung, pleural, and peritoneal cancer. Cumulative Exposure: We observed a peak and then a decrease in SMR for lung and pleural cancer, not for peritoneal cancer. TSLE: Pleural cancer SMR peaked at 20 to 29 years, then decreased, peritoneal cancer SMR reached a plateau after 20 years and lung cancer mortality was in excess in each class. Conclusions: We found different patterns in mortality in the main asbestos-related tumors.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2020
The study describes a cluster of 71 malignant mesothelioma cases among Bari residents without asbestos exposure other than residential exposure. This small cohort, as expected, was composed of a majority of females (56.34%) with a M/F ratio of 0.8, ages ≤ 65 years old (52.11%) and the epithelioid morphological type (78.87%). Sixty-four subjects (90.14%) lived between 10 m and 1000 m from the asbestos cement factory (Fibronit), and the latency length was longer than 55 years for 25 subjects (35.21%). The adjusted risk (adjusted OR) of observing the epithelial form of mesothelioma among subjects living at small distances from Fibronit was high (OR = 1.870 (0.353–9.905)) for people living 550–1000 m from the site and for those living less than 550 m from the site (OR = 1.470 (0.262–8.248)). Additionally, the subjects with a high length of exposure showed a relevant risk of epithelioid mesothelioma both for 21–40 years of exposure (OR = 2.027 (0.521–7.890)) and more than 40 years of exp...