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Artificial Turf: Contested Terrains for Precautionary Public Health with Particular Reference to Europe?

ABSTRACT: Millions of adults, children and teenagers use artificial sports pitches and playgrounds globally. Pitches are artificial grass and bases may be made up of crumb rubber from recycled tires or new rubber and sand. Player injury on pitches was a major concern. Now, debates about health focus on possible exposure and uptake of chemicals within pitch and base materials. Research has looked at potential risks to users from hazardous substances such as metals, volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons including benzo (a) (e) pyrenes and phthalates: some are carcinogens and others may be endocrine disruptors and have developmental reproductive effects. Small environmental monitoring and modelling studies, often with significant data gaps about exposure, range of substances monitored, occupational exposures, types of surfaces monitored and study length across seasons, indicated little risk to sports people and children but some risk to installation workers. A few, again often small, studies indicated potentially harmful human effects relating to skin, respiration and cancers. Only one widely cited biomonitoring study has been done and no rigorous cancer epidemiological studies exist. Unravelling exposures and uptake over decades may prove complex. European regulators have strengthened controls over crumb rubber chemicals, set different standards for toys and crumb rubber pitches. Bigger US studies now underway attempting to fill some of the data gaps will report between 2017 and 2019. Public health professionals in the meantime may draw on established principles to support greater caution in setting crumb rubber exposure limits and controls.

SUBMITTER: Watterson A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5615587 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Artificial Turf: Contested Terrains for Precautionary Public Health with Particular Reference to Europe?

Watterson Andrew A

International journal of environmental research and public health 20170912 9

Millions of adults, children and teenagers use artificial sports pitches and playgrounds globally. Pitches are artificial grass and bases may be made up of crumb rubber from recycled tires or new rubber and sand. Player injury on pitches was a major concern. Now, debates about health focus on possible exposure and uptake of chemicals within pitch and base materials. Research has looked at potential risks to users from hazardous substances such as metals, volatile organic compounds, polycyclic ar ...[more]

PMID: 28895924

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Project description:BackgroundAs digitalization is progressively permeating all aspects of society, how can be it fruitfully employed to sustain the public health goals of quality, accessibility, efficiency and equity in health care and prevention? In this paper, we reflect on the potential of applying digital tools to public health and discuss some key challenges.MethodsWe first define 'digitalization' in its broader sense, as well as applied to public health. We then build a conceptual framework where key public health domains are associated to available digital technologies in a matrix that help to identify digital features that bolster public health action. We also provide illustrative data and evidence on the application of digital solutions on selected public health areas. In the second part, we identify the strategic pillars for a successful European strategy for public health digitalization and we outline how the approach being pursued by the European Public Health Association (EUPHA) applies to digital health.ResultsFrom a public health perspective, digitalization is being touted as providing several potential benefits and advantages, including support for the transition from cure to prevention, helping to put people and patients at the center of care delivery, supporting patient empowerment and making healthcare system more efficient, safer and cheaper. These benefits are enabled through the following features of digital technologies: (i) Personalization and precision; (ii) Automation; (iii) Prediction; (iv) Data analytics and (v) Interaction.ConclusionA successful European strategy for public health digitalization should integrate the following pillars: political commitment, normative frameworks, technical infrastructure, targeted economic investments, education, research, monitoring and evaluation. EUPHA acknowledges digitalization is an asset for public health and is working both to promote the culture of "public health digitalization", as well as to enable its planning, implementation and evaluation at the research, practice and policy level.

Project description:BACKGROUND: In northern Europe, the tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) of the European subtype is usually transmitted to humans by the common tick Ixodes ricinus. The aims of the present study are (i) to obtain up-to-date information on the TBEV prevalence in host-seeking I. ricinus in southern and central Sweden; (ii) to compile and review all relevant published records on the prevalence of TBEV in ticks in northern Europe; and (iii) to analyse and try to explain how the TBE virus can be maintained in natural foci despite an apparently low TBEV infection prevalence in the vector population. METHODS: To estimate the mean minimum infection rate (MIR) of TBEV in I. ricinus in northern Europe (i.e. Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland) we reviewed all published TBEV prevalence data for host-seeking I. ricinus collected during 1958-2011. Moreover, we collected 2,074 nymphs and 906 adults of I. ricinus from 29 localities in Sweden during 2008. These ticks were screened for TBEV by RT-PCR. RESULTS: The MIR for TBEV in nymphal and adult I. ricinus was 0.28% for northern Europe and 0.23% for southern Sweden. The infection prevalence of TBEV was significantly lower in nymphs (0.10%) than in adult ticks (0.55%). At a well-known TBEV-endemic locality, Torö island south-east of Stockholm, the TBEV prevalence (MIR) was 0.51% in nymphs and 4.48% in adults of I. ricinus. CONCLUSIONS: If the ratio of nymphs to adult ticks in the TBEV-analysed sample differs from that in the I. ricinus population in the field, the MIR obtained will not necessarily reflect the TBEV prevalence in the field. The relatively low TBEV prevalence in the potential vector population recorded in most studies may partly be due to: (i) inclusion of uninfected ticks from the 'uninfected areas' surrounding the TBEV endemic foci; (ii) inclusion of an unrepresentative, too large proportion of immature ticks, compared to adult ticks, in the analysed tick pools; and (iii) shortcomings in the laboratory techniques used to detect the virus that may be present in a very low concentration or undetectable state in ticks which have not recently fed.

Project description:Objective: Thirty years ago it was demonstrated that folic acid taken before pregnancy and in early pregnancy reduced the risk of a neural tube defect (NTD). Despite Public Health Initiatives across Europe recommending that women take 0.4 mg folic acid before becoming pregnant and during the first trimester, the prevalence of NTD pregnancies has not materially decreased in the EU since 1998, in contrast to the dramatic fall observed in the USA. This study aimed to estimate the number of NTD pregnancies that would have been prevented if flour had been fortified with folic acid in Europe from 1998 as it had been in the USA. Design and Setting: The number of NTD pregnancies from 1998 to 2017 that would have been prevented if folic acid fortification had been implemented in the 28 countries who were members of the European Union in 2019 was predicted was predicted using data on NTD prevalence from 35 EUROCAT congenital anomaly registries and literature searches for population serum folate levels and folic acid supplementation. Results: From 1998 to 2017 an estimated 95,213 NTD pregnancies occurred amongst 104 million births in the 28 countries in the EU, a prevalence of 0.92 per 1,000 births. The median serum folate level in Europe over this time period was estimated to be 14.1 μg/L. There is a lack of information about women taking folic acid supplements before becoming pregnant and during the first trimester of pregnancy, with one meta-analysis indicating that around 25% of women did so. An estimated 14,600 NTD pregnancies may have been prevented if the European countries had implemented fortification at the level adopted by the USA in 1998 and 25% of women took folic acid supplements. An estimated 19,500 NTD pregnancies would have been prevented if no women took folic acid supplements. Conclusions: This study suggests that failure to implement mandatory folic acid fortification in the 28 European countries has caused, and continues to cause, neural tube defects to occur in almost 1,000 pregnancies every year.

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Artificial Turf: Contested Terrains for Precautionary Public Health with Particular Reference to Europe?

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Artificial Turf: Contested Terrains for Precautionary Public Health with Particular Reference to Europe?

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