Research Interests:
Continuous exposure to many chemicals, including through air, water, food, or other media and products results in health impacts which have been well assessed, however little is known about the total disease burden related to chemicals.... more
Continuous exposure to many chemicals, including through air, water, food, or other media and products results in health impacts which have been well assessed, however little is known about the total disease burden related to chemicals. This is important to know for overall policy actions and priorities. In this article the known burden related to selected chemicals or their mixtures, main data gaps, and the link to public health policy are reviewed. A systematic review of the literature for global burden of disease estimates from chemicals was conducted. Global disease due to chemicals was estimated using standard methodology of the Global Burden of Disease. In total, 4.9 million deaths (8.3% of total) and 86 million Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) (5.7% of total) were attributable to environmental exposure and management of selected chemicals in 2004. The largest contributors include indoor smoke from solid fuel use, outdoor air pollution and second-hand smoke, with 2.0, 1....
Research Interests:
Epidemiology, Decision Making, Public Health Policy, Environmental Health, Air pollution, and 17 morePublic Health, Risk assessment, Mortality, Environmental Pollution, Humans, Disease, Burden of Disease, Systematic review, Incomplete Data, Occupational Exposure, Second-hand smoke, Risk Assessment, Environmental Pollutants, Health Effect, Environmental Exposure, Global burden of disease, and Public Policy
Health gains that environmental interventions could achieve are main questions when choosing environmental health action to prevent disease. The World Health Organization has recently released profiles of environmental burden of disease... more
Health gains that environmental interventions could achieve are main questions when choosing environmental health action to prevent disease. The World Health Organization has recently released profiles of environmental burden of disease for 192 countries. These country profiles provide an estimate of the health impacts from the three major risk factors 'unsafe water, sanitation & hygiene', 'indoor air pollution from solid fuel use' and 'outdoor air pollution'. The profiles also provide an estimate of preventable health impacts by the environment as a whole. While the estimates for the three risk factors are based on country exposures, the estimates of health gains for total environmental improvements are based on a review of the literature supplemented by expert opinion and combined with country health statistics. Between 13% and 37% of the countries' disease burden could be prevented by environmental improvements, resulting globally in about 13 million d...
Research Interests:
The 2010 global burden of disease (GBD) study represents the latest effort to estimate the global burden of disease and injuries and the associated risk factors. Like previous GBD studies, this latest iteration reflects a continuing... more
The 2010 global burden of disease (GBD) study represents the latest effort to estimate the global burden of disease and injuries and the associated risk factors. Like previous GBD studies, this latest iteration reflects a continuing evolution in methods, scope and evidence base. Since the first GBD Study in 1990, the burden of diarrhoeal disease and the burden attributable to inadequate water and sanitation have fallen dramatically. While this is consistent with trends in communicable disease and child mortality, the change in attributable risk is also due to new interpretations of the epidemiological evidence from studies of interventions to improve water quality. To provide context for a series of companion papers proposing alternative assumptions and methods concerning the disease burden and risks from inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene, we summarise evolving methods over previous GBD studies. We also describe an alternative approach using population intervention modelling....
Research Interests:
Research Design, Water, Global Health, Tropical medicine (Health Sciences), Diarrhea, and 13 moreWater Supply, Humans, Child, Drinking Water, Infant, Risk factors, Hygiene, Sanitation, Public health systems and services research, Risk Factors, Cost of Illness, Environmental Exposure, and Child preschool
The Viral Hepatitis Prevention Board (VHPB) convened a meeting of international experts from the public and private sectors in order to review and evaluate the epidemiology of blood-borne infections in healthcare workers, to evaluate the... more
The Viral Hepatitis Prevention Board (VHPB) convened a meeting of international experts from the public and private sectors in order to review and evaluate the epidemiology of blood-borne infections in healthcare workers, to evaluate the transmission of hepatitis B and C viruses as an occupational risk, to discuss primary and secondary prevention measures and to review recommendations for infected healthcare workers and (para)medical students. This VHPB meeting outlined a number of recommendations for the prevention and control of viral hepatitis in the following domains: application of standard precautions, panels for counselling infected healthcare workers and patients, hepatitis B vaccination, restrictions on the practice of exposure-prone procedures by infected healthcare workers, ethical and legal issues, assessment of risk and costs, priority setting by individual countries and the role of the VHPB. Participants also identified a number of terms that need harmonization or standardisation in order to facilitate communication between experts.