Environmental Health最新文献

{"title":"PFOA and testis cancer in the Veneto Region (Italy)","authors":"Mario Saugo, Enrico Ioverno, Armando Olivieri, Francesco Bertola, Angela Pasinato, Alan Ducatman","doi":"10.1186/s12940-024-01064-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-024-01064-4","url":null,"abstract":"The largest documented episode of human contamination by PFOA in the world (approximately 150,000 actual residents on 1 January 2020) has occurred in Italy’s Veneto Region. In this large, mostly flat plain area, a cluster of testicular cancers has also been observed. Preliminary data are reported, and the most relevant and recent recommendations regarding the health surveillance of exposed individuals are emphasized.","PeriodicalId":11686,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Health","volume":"70 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140314359","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Residents' experiences during a hydrogen sulfide crisis in Carson, California.","authors":"Arbor J L Quist, April Hovav, Alexander D Silverman, Bhavna Shamasunder, Jill E Johnston","doi":"10.1186/s12940-024-01071-5","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12940-024-01071-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>In early October 2021, thousands of residents in Carson, California began complaining of malodors and headaches. Hydrogen sulfide (H₂S), a noxious odorous gas, was measured at concentrations up to 7000 parts per billion (ppb) and remained above California's acute air quality standard of 30 ppb for a month. Intermittent elevations of H₂S continued for 3 months. After 2 months of malodor in this environmental justice community, a government agency attributed the H₂S to environmental pollution from a warehouse fire. Research has yielded conflicting results on the health effects of H₂S exposure at levels that were experienced during this event. This research fills a critical need for understanding how people perceive and experience emergent environmental health events and will help shape future responses.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Through a community-academic partnership, we conducted 6 focus groups with 33 participants who resided in the Carson area during the crisis. We sought to understand how this incident affected residents through facilitated discussion on topics including information acquisition, impressions of the emergency response, health symptoms, and ongoing impacts.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The majority of participants were women (n = 25), identified as Latina/o (n = 19), and rent their homes (n = 21). Participants described difficulty obtaining coherent information about the emergency, which resulted in feelings of abandonment. Most participants felt that local government and healthcare providers downplayed and/or disregarded their concerns despite ongoing odors and health symptoms. Participants described experiencing stress from the odors' unknown health effects and continued fear of future odor incidents. Residents sought to take control of the crisis through information sharing, community networking, and activism. Participants experienced longer term effects from this event, including increased awareness of pollution and reduced trust in local agencies.</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>This study demonstrates the necessity of clear, comprehensive, and prompt responses by relevant decisionmakers to chemical emergencies to appropriately address residents' fears, curb the spread of misinformation, and minimize adverse health effects. Participant responses also point to the benefit of supporting horizontal community networks for improved information sharing. By engaging directly with community members, researchers and disaster responders can better understand the various and complex impacts of chemical disasters and can improve response.</p>","PeriodicalId":11686,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Health","volume":"23 1","pages":"31"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10960400/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140193612","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Inverse association between plasma chlordecone concentrations and progression of alcoholic liver fibrosis: the role of liver metabolism","authors":"Moana Gelu-Simeon, Marie-Josée Lafrance, Leah Michineau, Eric Saillard, Jean Pierre Thomé, Claude Emond, Michel Samson, Luc Multigner","doi":"10.1186/s12940-024-01054-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-024-01054-6","url":null,"abstract":"Chlordecone is a persistent organochlorinated insecticide, extensively used in the French West Indies and has been contaminating the population for more than thirty years. Its potentiation effect on hepatotoxic agents has been demonstrated in animal models. We investigated the relationship between environmental exposure to chlordecone and the progression of liver fibrosis. This study included 182 consecutive patients with chronic alcoholic hepatitis whose liver fibrosis was assessed using non-invasive methods. Measured plasma chlordecone concentrations at inclusion were used as surrogate of long-term exposure under steady-state conditions. As the pharmacokinetic processing of chlordecone is largely determined by the liver, we used a human physiologically based pharmacokinetic model to predict plausible changes in the steady-state blood chlordecone concentrations induced by liver fibrosis. With a median follow-up of 27.1 years after the onset of alcohol consumption, we found a significant decrease in the risk of advanced liver fibrosis with increasing plasma chlordecone concentration (adjusted hazard ratio = 0.56; 95% confidence interval: 0.34–0.95 for the highest vs. lowest tertile, p = 0.04). Changes induced by liver fibrosis influenced the pharmacokinetic processing of chlordecone, resulting in substantial modifications in its steady-state blood concentrations. According to this human model of coexposure to alcohol, reverse causality is the most plausible explanation of this inverse association between plasma chlordecone concentrations and progression of liver fibrosis. This study underlines the importance of considering the pharmacokinetic of environmental contaminants in epidemiological studies when biomarkers of exposure are used to investigate their own impact on the liver. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03373396.","PeriodicalId":11686,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Health","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140169258","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Urinary cadmium concentration is associated with the severity and clinical outcomes of COVID-19: a bicenter observational cohort study","authors":"Li-Chung Chiu, Chung-Shu Lee, Ping-Chih Hsu, Hsin-Hsien Li, Tien-Ming Chan, Ching-Chung Hsiao, Scott Chih-Hsi Kuo, How-Wen Ko, Shu-Min Lin, Chun-Hua Wang, Horng-Chyuan Lin, Pao-Hsien Chu, Tzung-Hai Yen","doi":"10.1186/s12940-024-01070-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-024-01070-6","url":null,"abstract":"Cadmium and nickel exposure can cause oxidative stress, induce inflammation, inhibit immune function, and therefore has significant impacts on the pathogenesis and severity of many diseases. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection can also provoke oxidative stress and the dysregulation of inflammatory and immune responses. This study aimed to assess the potential associations of cadmium and nickel exposure with the severity and clinical outcomes of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). We performed a retrospective, observational, bicenter cohort analysis of patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection in Taiwan between June 2022 and July 2023. Cadmium and nickel concentrations in blood and urine were measured within 3 days of the diagnosis of acute SARS-CoV-2 infection, and the severity and clinical outcomes of patients with COVID-19 were analyzed. A total of 574 patients were analyzed and divided into a severe COVID-19 group (hospitalized patients) (n = 252; 43.9%), and non-severe COVID-19 group (n = 322; 56.1%). The overall in-hospital mortality rate was 11.8% (n = 68). The severe COVID-19 patients were older, had significantly more comorbidities, and significantly higher neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio, C-reactive protein, and interleukin-6 than the non-severe COVID-19 patients (all p < 0.05). Blood and urine cadmium and urine nickel concentrations were significantly higher in the severe COVID-19 patients than in the non-severe COVID-19 patients. Among the severe COVID-19 patients, those in higher urine cadmium/creatinine quartiles had a significantly higher risk of organ failure (i.e., higher APACHE II and SOFA scores), higher neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio, lower PaO2/FiO2 requiring higher invasive mechanical ventilation support, higher risk of acute respiratory distress syndrome, and higher 60-, 90-day, and all-cause hospital mortality (all p < 0.05). Multivariable logistic regression models revealed that urine cadmium/creatinine was independently associated with severe COVID-19 (adjusted OR 1.643 [95% CI 1.060–2.547], p = 0.026), and that a urine cadmium/creatinine value > 2.05 μg/g had the highest predictive value (adjusted OR 5.349, [95% CI 1.118–25.580], p = 0.036). Urine cadmium concentration in the early course of COVID-19 could predict the severity and clinical outcomes of patients and was independently associated with the risk of severe COVID-19.","PeriodicalId":11686,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Health","volume":"116 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140169359","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Organochlorine pesticides and risk of papillary thyroid cancer in U.S. military personnel: a nested case-control study","authors":"Jennifer A. Rusiecki, Jordan McAdam, Hristina Denic-Roberts, Andreas Sjodin, Mark Davis, Richard Jones, Thanh D. Hoang, Mary H. Ward, Shuangge Ma, Yawei Zhang","doi":"10.1186/s12940-024-01068-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-024-01068-0","url":null,"abstract":"The effects of organochlorine pesticide (OCP) exposure on the development of human papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) are not well understood. A nested case-control study was conducted with data from the U.S. Department of Defense Serum Repository (DoDSR) cohort between 2000 and 2013 to assess associations of individual OCPs serum concentrations with PTC risk. This study included 742 histologically confirmed PTC cases (341 females, 401 males) and 742 individually-matched controls with pre-diagnostic serum samples selected from the DoDSR. Associations between categories of lipid-corrected serum concentrations of seven OCPs and PTC risk were evaluated for classical PTC and follicular PTC using conditional logistic regression, adjusted for body mass index category and military branch to compute odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Effect modification by sex, birth cohort, and race was examined. There was no evidence of associations between most of the OCPs and PTC, overall or stratified by histological subtype. Overall, there was no evidence of an association between hexachlorobenzene (HCB) and PTC, but stratified by histological subtype HCB was associated with significantly increased risk of classical PTC (third tertile above the limit of detection (LOD) vs. <LOD, OR = 1.61, 95% CI, 1.09, 2.38; p for trend = 0.05) and significantly decreased risk of follicular variant PTC (third tertile above the limit of detection (LOD) vs. <LOD, OR = 0.38, 95% CI, 0.16, 0.91; p for trend = 0.04). Further stratified by sex, risk of classical PTC was higher for females (third tertile above LOD vs. <LOD, OR = 2.23, 95% CI: 1.23, 4.06; p-trend = 0.02) than for males (OR = 1.22, 95%CI: 0.72–2.08; p-trend = 0.56), though the test for interaction by sex was not statistically significant (p-interaction = 0.30). Similarly, β-hexachlorocyclohexane (β-HCCH) was associated with a higher risk for classical PTC for women with concentrations ≥LOD versus <LOD (OR = 1.76, 95% CI: 1.07, 2.89), while the effects were null for men. There were no consistent trends when stratified by race or birth year. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has classified HCB and other OCPs we studied here as probable human carcinogens. Our findings of increased risks for classical PTC associated with increased concentrations of HCB and β-HCCH, which were stronger among females, should be replicated in future studies of other populations.","PeriodicalId":11686,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Health","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140169062","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Early childhood exposure to environmental phenols and parabens, phthalates, organophosphate pesticides, and trace elements in association with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms in the CHARGE study","authors":"Jiwon Oh, Kyoungmi Kim, Kurunthachalam Kannan, Patrick J. Parsons, Agnieszka Mlodnicka, Rebecca J. Schmidt, Julie B. Schweitzer, Irva Hertz-Picciotto, Deborah H. Bennett","doi":"10.1186/s12940-024-01065-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-024-01065-3","url":null,"abstract":"A growing body of literature investigated childhood exposure to environmental chemicals in association with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms, but limited studies considered urinary mixtures of multiple chemical classes. This study examined associations of concurrent exposure to non-persistent chemicals with ADHD symptoms in children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), developmental delay (DD), and typical development (TD). A total of 549 children aged 2–5 years from the Childhood Autism Risks from Genetics and Environment (CHARGE) case-control study were administered the Aberrant Behavior Checklist (ABC). This study focused on the ADHD/noncompliance subscale and its two subdomains (hyperactivity/impulsivity, inattention). Sixty-two chemicals from four classes (phenols/parabens, phthalates, organophosphate pesticides, trace elements) were quantified in child urine samples, and 43 chemicals detected in > 70% samples were used to investigate their associations with ADHD symptoms. Negative binomial regression was used for single-chemical analysis, and weighted quantile sum regression with repeated holdout validation was applied for mixture analysis for each chemical class and all chemicals. The mixture analyses were further stratified by diagnostic group. A phthalate metabolite mixture was associated with higher ADHD/noncompliance scores (median count ratio [CR] = 1.10; 2.5th, 97.5th percentile: 1.00, 1.21), especially hyperactivity/impulsivity (median CR = 1.09; 2.5th, 97.5th percentile: 1.00, 1.25). The possible contributors to these mixture effects were di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) metabolites and mono-2-heptyl phthalate (MHPP). These associations were likely driven by children with ASD as these were observed among children with ASD, but not among TD or those with DD. Additionally, among children with ASD, a mixture of all chemicals was associated with ADHD/noncompliance and hyperactivity/impulsivity, and possible contributors were 3,4-dihydroxy benzoic acid, DEHP metabolites, MHPP, mono-n-butyl phthalate, and cadmium. Early childhood exposure to a phthalate mixture was associated with ADHD symptoms, particularly among children with ASD. While the diverse diagnostic profiles limited generalizability, our findings suggest a potential link between phthalate exposure and the comorbidity of ASD and ADHD.","PeriodicalId":11686,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Health","volume":"112 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140127767","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Prenatal polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon exposure and asthma at age 8-9 years in a multi-site longitudinal study.","authors":"Allison R Sherris, Christine T Loftus, Adam A Szpiro, Logan C Dearborn, Marnie F Hazlehurst, Kecia N Carroll, Paul E Moore, Margaret A Adgent, Emily S Barrett, Nicole R Bush, Drew B Day, Kurunthachalam Kannan, Kaja Z LeWinn, Ruby H N Nguyen, Yu Ni, Anne M Riederer, Morgan Robinson, Sheela Sathyanarayana, Qi Zhao, Catherine J Karr","doi":"10.1186/s12940-024-01066-2","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12940-024-01066-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background and aim: </strong>Studies suggest prenatal exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) may influence wheezing or asthma in preschool-aged children. However, the impact of prenatal PAH exposure on asthma and wheeze in middle childhood remain unclear. We investigated these associations in socio-demographically diverse participants from the ECHO PATHWAYS multi-cohort consortium.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We included 1,081 birth parent-child dyads across five U.S. cities. Maternal urinary mono-hydroxylated PAH metabolite concentrations (OH-PAH) were measured during mid-pregnancy. Asthma at age 8-9 years and wheezing trajectory across childhood were characterized by caregiver reported asthma diagnosis and asthma/wheeze symptoms. We used logistic and multinomial regression to estimate odds ratios of asthma and childhood wheezing trajectories associated with five individual OH-PAHs, adjusting for urine specific gravity, various maternal and child characteristics, study site, prenatal and postnatal smoke exposure, and birth year and season in single metabolite and mutually adjusted models. We used multiplicative interaction terms to evaluate effect modification by child sex and explored OH-PAH mixture effects through Weighted Quantile Sum regression.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The prevalence of asthma in the study population was 10%. We found limited evidence of adverse associations between pregnancy OH-PAH concentrations and asthma or wheezing trajectories. We observed adverse associations between 1/9-hydroxyphenanthrene and asthma and persistent wheeze among girls, and evidence of inverse associations with asthma for 1-hydroxynathpthalene, which was stronger among boys, though tests for effect modification by child sex were not statistically significant.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>In a large, multi-site cohort, we did not find strong evidence of an association between prenatal exposure to PAHs and child asthma at age 8-9 years, though some adverse associations were observed among girls.</p>","PeriodicalId":11686,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Health","volume":"23 1","pages":"26"},"PeriodicalIF":5.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10921622/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140058969","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Dose-response relationship between lung function and chest imaging response to silica exposures in artificial stone manufacturing workers.","authors":"Chi-Hsien Chen, Perng-Jy Tsai, Wen-Wen Chang, Cheng-Yao Chen, Chih-Yong Chen, Deborah Yates, Yue Leon Guo","doi":"10.1186/s12940-024-01067-1","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12940-024-01067-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Occupational exposure to artificial stone, a popular material used for countertops, can cause accelerated silicosis, but the precise relationship between silica dose and disease development is unclear.</p><p><strong>Objectives: </strong>This study evaluated the impact of silica exposure on lung function and chest imaging in artificial stone manufacturing workers.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Questionnaire and spirometry assessments were administered to workers in two plants. A high-exposure subset underwent further evaluation, including chest CT and DLco. Weighting factors, assigned as proxies for silica exposure, were based on work tasks. Individual cumulative exposures were estimated using area concentration measurements and time spent in specific areas. Exposure-response associations were analyzed using linear and logistic regression models.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Among 65 participants, the mean cumulative silica exposure was 3.61 mg/m³-year (range 0.0001 to 44.4). Each 1 mg/m³-year increase was associated with a 0.46% reduction in FVC, a 0.45% reduction in FEV1, and increased lung function abnormality risk (aOR = 1.27, 95% CI = 1.03-1.56). Weighting factors correlated with cumulative exposures (Spearman correlation = 0.59, p < 0.0001), and weighted tenure was associated with lung function abnormalities (aOR = 1.04, 95% CI = 1.01-1.09). Of 37 high-exposure workers, 19 underwent chest CT, with 12 (63%) showing abnormal opacities. Combining respiratory symptoms, lung function, and chest X-ray achieved 91.7% sensitivity and 75% specificity for predicting chest CT abnormalities.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Lung function and chest CT abnormalities occur commonly in artificial stone workers. For high-exposure individuals, abnormalities on health screening could prompt further chest CT examination to facilitate early silicosis detection.</p>","PeriodicalId":11686,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Health","volume":"23 1","pages":"25"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10908069/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140012453","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"As the world turns: scientific publishing in the digital era","authors":"David Ozonoff","doi":"10.1186/s12940-024-01063-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-024-01063-5","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;A quarter of the way into the 21st Century the technology of encoding and transmitting information in digital form is in full flower. Almost without noticing it, we are living through a historical discontinuity comparable to the one produced by Guttenberg’s invention of printing with moveable type in 1450, a technology that made possible the production of identical written texts on a scale previously unimaginable. That technology was quickly adopted, but its basic form didn’t change for hundreds of years. Today the speed of advance in digital technology is breath taking. Digital devices like the smart phone have moved from expensive prototypes to ubiquitous and essential appliances in a little over a decade. Digital technology has also substantially affected scientific publishing.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In 1879 John Shaw Billings, a surgeon in the Office of the US Surgeon General of the Army, began to compile an author-topic catalog of the library. In 1966 its print descendant, &lt;i&gt;Index Medicus&lt;/i&gt; (now &lt;i&gt;PubMed&lt;/i&gt;), went online [1], but as long as the journals themselves were still in print-only format, its full impact only came when most journal-published research was also available in electronic digital format. That time has come and it has had a profound effect on how scientists seek out and find research relevant to their work. Gone are the days when many of us routinely perused the latest issues of journals in our institutional libraries or went to library stacks to retrieve past issues and lug them to the copy machines at 10 cents a page. The stacks and copy machines now sit on our desks as internet-connected computers and personal printers. Some of us haven’t been in a physical library for years. Journals still appearing in paper format have been forced to have a digital format also available. At the same time advances in research methods, such as genomics or new imaging technics unimaginable in the pre-digital era have vastly expanded the scope and depth of biomedical research. Even well-defined research fields are now extensively sub-specialized and the volume of publication is potentially overwhelming. Yet online digital search makes it possible to find the needle in the haystack, and this is an essential difference compared to even a short time ago.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is a seismic shift in scientific publishing and it has happened in a relatively short time without most of us being conscious of it. Just as music streaming services uncoupled song tracks from the record album or CD upon which they originally appeared, no-cost search engines like Google or the biomedical research database PubMed have uncoupled individual research articles from the journals where they originally appeared. Journal brand names remain significant, but less so than previously and they are no longer the first place we look. Now we can look everywhere at once.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;By the year 2000 we had the routine ability to transmit our writing electronically in digital form and access to a w","PeriodicalId":11686,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Health","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139967902","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Disparities in the association between ambient temperature and preterm birth according to individual and regional characteristics: a nationwide time-stratified case-crossover study","authors":"Jieun Min, Whanhee Lee, Jongmin Oh, Youngrin Kwag, Eunji Kim, Joyce Mary Kim, Kyung A Lee, Eunhee Ha","doi":"10.1186/s12940-024-01062-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-024-01062-6","url":null,"abstract":"Several studies have reported that climate change elevates heat exposure in pregnant women and high temperatures during pregnancy are associated with preterm births (PTBs). Although the association might be disproportionate, related evidence remains sparse. We evaluated the disproportionate risk of PTB associated with ambient temperature during pregnancy by individual and regional characteristics in South Korea. We collected data on birth certificates and daily mean temperatures during the period from 2011 to 2019. A time-stratified case-crossover design was used to investigate the association between temperature and PTB and stratified analyses were conducted to examine the effect modification of individual and regional characteristics. A total of 160,067 singleton PTBs were recorded in Korea from 2011 to 2019. A 5℃ increase in the mean temperature during the last four weeks before delivery was associated with an increased risk of PTB with an odds ratio (OR) of 1.03 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.02, 1.05), and the association was more evident in mothers aged ≥35 years (OR: 1.06 [95% CI: 1.03, 1.10]) and with low education levels (OR: 1.04 [95% CI: 1.02, 1.05]). Additionally, the estimated risk was evident in districts with lower medical resources and more prominent disparities were shown by individual and regional characteristics in rural areas than in urban areas. This study provides evidence that the risk of PTB related to ambient temperature is disproportionate by individual and regional characteristics and suggests the need for public health policies to alleviate the disparities, especially in rural areas.","PeriodicalId":11686,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Health","volume":"106 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139920549","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}