Indoor Pollution

 
 
 
 
 
 

Indoor pollution 
 
 
 

Prepared by:  Seifullina Saniya

Group: Fin - 111R

Checked by: Professor Kolbay I.S. 
 
 
 
 
 

Almaty, 2011 

Content : 

 

 

Introduction 

The environment is everything around us - the air we breathe, the water we drink and use, and the food we consume. It's also the chemicals, radiation, microbes, and physical forces with which we come into contact. Our interactions with the environment are complex and are not always healthy. Health conditions such as asthma, foodborne illnesses, lead exposure, radiation exposure, litter and allergies are all impacted by the environment. 

Environmental health is the branch of public health that is concerned with all aspects of the natural and built environment that may affect human health. Other terms that concern or refer to the discipline of environmental health include environmental public health and environmental health and protection.

Environmental health is defined by the World Health Organization as:

Those aspects of the human health and disease that are determined by factors in the environment. It also refers to the theory and practice of assessing and controlling factors in the environment that can potentially affect health.

Environmental health as used by the WHO Regional Office for Europe, includes both the direct pathological effects of chemicals, radiation and some biological agents, and the effects (often indirect) on health and wellbeing of the broad physical, psychological, social and cultural environment, which includes housing, urban development, land use and transport. 

Disciplines of Environmental Health 

Three basic disciplines generally contribute to the field of environmental health: environmental epidemiology, toxicology, and exposure science. Each of these disciplines contributes different information to describe problems in environmental health, but there is some overlap among them.

Environmental epidemiology studies the relationship between environmental exposures (including exposure to chemicals, radiation, microbiological agents, etc.) and human health. Observational studies, which simply observe exposures that people have already experienced, are common in environmental epidemiology because humans cannot ethically be exposed to agents that are known or suspected to cause disease. While the inability to use experimental study designs is a limitation of environmental epidemiology, this discipline directly observes effects on human health rather than estimating effects from animal studies.

Toxicology studies how environmental exposures lead to specific health outcomes, generally in animals, as a means to understand possible health outcomes in humans. Toxicology has the advantage of being able to conduct randomized controlled trials and other experimental studies because they can use animal subjects. However there are many differences in animal and human biology, and there can be a lot of uncertainty when interpreting the results of animal studies for their implications for human health.

Exposure science studies human exposure to environmental contaminants by both identifying and quantifying exposures. Exposure science can be used to support environmental epidemiology by better describing environmental exposures that may lead to a particular health outcome, identify common exposures whose health outcomes may be better understood through a toxicology study, or can be used in a risk assessment to determine whether current levels of exposure might exceed recommended levels. Exposure science has the advantage of being able to very accurately quantify exposures to specific chemicals, but it does not generate any information about health outcomes like environmental epidemiology or toxicology.

Information from these three disciplines can be combined to conduct a risk assessment for specific chemicals or mixtures of chemicals to determine whether an exposure poses significant risk to human health. This can in turn be used to develop and implement environmental health policy that, for example, regulates chemical emissions, or imposes standards for proper sanitation. 

Concerns

Environmental health addresses all human-health-related aspects of both the natural environment and the built environment. Environmental health concerns include:

• Air quality, including both ambient outdoor air and indoor air quality, which also comprises concerns about environmental tobacco smoke.
• Body art safety, including tattooing, body piercing and permanent cosmetics.
• Climate change and its effects on health.
• Disaster preparedness and response.
• Food safety, including in agriculture, transportation, food processing, wholesale and retail distribution and sale.
• Hazardous materials management, including hazardous waste management, contaminated site remediation, the prevention of leaks from underground storage tanks and the prevention of hazardous materials releases to the environment and responses to emergency situations resulting from such releases.
• Housing, including substandard housing abatement and the inspection of jails and prisons.
• Childhood lead poisoning prevention.
• Land use planning, including smart growth.
• Liquid waste disposal, including city wastewater treatment plants and on-site waste water disposal systems, such as septic tank systems and chemical toilets.
• Medical waste management and disposal.
• Noise pollution control.
• Occupational health and industrial hygiene.
• Radiological health, including exposure to ionizing radiation from X-rays or radioactive isotopes.
• Recreational water illness prevention, including from swimming pools, spas and ocean and freshwater bathing places.
• Safe drinking water.
• Solid waste management, including landfills, recycling facilities, composting and solid waste transfer stations.
• Toxic chemical exposure whether in consumer products, housing, workplaces, air, water or soil.
• Vector control, including the control of mosquitoes, rodents, flies, cockroaches and other animals that may transmit pathogens.

According to recent estimates, about 5 to 10 % of disability adjusted life years (DALY) lost are due to environmental causes in Europe. By far the most important factor is fine particulate matter pollution in urban air. Similarly, environmental exposures have been estimated to contribute to 4.9 million (8.7%) deaths and 86 million (5.7%) DALYs globally

Toxicology 

Toxicology (from the Greek words τοξικός - toxicos "poisonous" and logos) is a branch of biology, chemistry, and medicine concerned with the study of the adverse effects of chemicals on living organisms. It is the study of symptoms, mechanisms, treatments and detection of poisoning, especially the poisoning of people.

Dioscorides, a Greek physician in the court of the Roman emperor Nero, made the first attempt to classify plants according to their toxic and therapeutic effect. Ibn Wahshiya wrote the Book on Poisons in the 9th or 10th century.

Mathieu Orfila is considered to be the modern father of toxicology, having given the subject its first formal treatment in 1813 in his Traité des poisons, also called Toxicologie générale.

In 1850 Jean Stas gave the evidence that the Belgian Count Hypolyte Visart de Bocarmé killed his brother-in-law by poisoning with nicotine.

Theophrastus Phillipus Auroleus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1493–1541) (also referred to as Paracelsus, from his belief that his studies were above or beyond the work of Celsus - a Roman physician from the first century) is also considered "the father" of toxicology. He is credited with the classic toxicology maxim, "Alle Dinge sind Gift und nichts ist ohne Gift; allein die Dosis macht, dass ein Ding kein Gift ist." which translates as, "All things are poison and nothing is without poison; only the dose makes a thing not a poison." This is often condensed to: "The dose makes the poison" or in Latin "Sola dosis facit venenum".

The relationship between dose and its effects on the exposed organism is of high significance in toxicology. The chief criterion regarding the toxicity of a chemical is the dose, i.e. the amount of exposure to the substance. All substances are toxic under the right conditions. The term LD50 refers to the dose of a toxic substance that kills 50 percent of a test population (typically rats or other surrogates when the test concerns human toxicity). LD50 estimations in animals are no longer required for regulatory submissions as a part of pre-clinical development package. The conventional relationship (more exposure equals higher risk) has been challenged in the study of endocrine disruptors.

A toxin is a poisonous substance.

Toxins can be small molecules, peptides, or proteins that are capable of causing disease on contact with or absorption by body tissues interacting with biological macromolecules such as enzymes or cellular receptors. Toxins vary greatly in their severity, ranging from usually minor and acute (as in a bee sting) to almost immediately deadly (as in botulinum toxin).

Toxins are often distinguished from other chemical agents by their method of production - the word toxin does not specify method of delivery (compare with venom and the narrower meaning of poison – all substances that can also cause disturbances to organisms). It simply means it is a biologically produced poison.

According to a International Committee of the Red Cross review of the Biological Weapons Convention, "Toxins are poisonous products of organisms; unlike biological agents, they are inanimate and not capable of reproducing themselves." and "Since the signing of the Convention, there have been no disputes among the parties regarding the definition of biological agents or toxins..."

On a broader scale, toxins may be classified as either exotoxins, being excreted by an organism, and endotoxins, that are released mainly when bacteria are lysed.

Substances and preparations which, if they are inhaled or ingested or if they penetrate the skin:

• may induce cancer or increase its incidence and can affect any cells or tissues = Carcinogens
• may induce hereditary genetic defects or increase their incidence and effect the germ cells (gonads) = Mutagens
• may induce non-hereditary congenital malformations or increase their incidence and effect the growing foetus =Teratogens

 

Mutagens 

A mutagen is a substance or agent that causes an increase in the rate of change in genes (subsections of the DNA of the body's cells). These mutations (changes) can be passed along as the cell reproduces, sometimes leading to defective cells or cancer.

Examples of mutagens include certain biological and chemical agents as well exposure to ultraviolet light or ionizing radiation.

Mutagenesis is the formation of mutations.

There are many types of mutations, some of which are harmful and others which have little or no effect on the body's function.

Mutagens can be identified using the Ames test and other biochemical testing methods.

Do not confuse a mutagen with a carcinogen (a substance that causes cancer). Mutagens may cause cancer, but not always.

Avoid working with mutagens whenever possible. If you must work with a mutagen be sure to wear personal protective equipment (PPE) and utilize workplace controls such as a fume cupboards to minimize your exposure.

Effects of mutations

The changes in nucleic acid sequences by mutations include substitution of nucleotide base-pairs and insertions and deletions of one or more nucleotides in DNA sequences. Although some of these mutations are lethal, or cause serious disease, many have minor effects, as the changes they cause in the sequence of encoded proteins are not significant. Many mutations cause no visible effects at all, either because they occur in introns or because they do not change the amino-acid sequence, due to redundancy of codons. On rare occasions they can create beneficial mutations, such as disease resistance, and can spur evolutionary change in a population. 

Genetic drift

The change in a population’s genetic material due to the accumulation of random chance mutations is called genetic drift, and serves as a molecular clock. In general, the more nucleotide differences between two organisms, the more time has elapsed since their last common ancestor. Though it is difficult to determine in many organisms, estimates for mutation rates have been made for both E. coli and eukaryotes. It was estimated that, in these organisms, about one nucleotide in every 1010 is changed, and continues through reproduction to future generations of cells.