美国、加拿大环境和健康风险管理方法

对目前美国和加拿大多个部门使用的风险评价与风险管理方法进行了全面回顾和综合分析,论述各种不同方法的特征,深入探讨各种管理方法的基础、利弊、使用经验,辨识环境、人类健康和职业健康风险综合方法中应该包含的要素,阐述风险管理目标的确定方法,以期为中国的环境风险管理提供经验。     

生物标志物（Biomarkers）在海洋环境监测中的研究与进展

污染物的存在给海洋环境和生态健康带来了巨大的压力,如何监测这些污染物并对其毒性进行科学的评价,成为当今环境科学关心的热点问题。生物标志物（Biomarkers）是毒理学研究的重要工具,它能对污染事件进行早期预警,并能在一定程度上评估生态风险。对近十多年来生物标志物的研究与应用进行了回顾,总结了不同水平（分子、细胞、个体、系统）生物标志物的种类、特征、检测方法和应用特点,并对现存挑战和未来发展趋向进行了展望,旨在系统的认识生物标志物,并为其在海洋环境监测中的合理应用提供理论借鉴。     

Role of biomarkers in monitoring exposures to chemicals: present position,future prospects

Biomarkers are becoming increasingly important in toxicology and human health. Many research groups are carrying out studies to develop biomarkers of exposure to chemicals and apply these for human monitoring. There is considerable interest in the use and application of biomarkers to identify the nature and amounts of chemical exposures in occupational and environmental situations. Major research goals are to develop and validate biomarkers that reflect specific exposures and permit the prediction of the risk of disease in individuals and groups. One important objective is to prevent human cancer. This review presents a commentary and consensus views about the major developments on biomarkers for monitoring human exposure to chemicals. A particular emphasis is on monitoring exposures to carcinogens. Significant developments in the areas of new and existing biomarkers, analytical methodologies, validation studies and field trials together with auditing and quality assessment of data are discussed. New developments in the relatively young field of toxicogenomics possibly leading to the identification of individual susceptibility to both cancer and non-cancer endpoints are also considered. The construction and development of reliable databases that integrate information from genomic and proteomic research programmes should offer a promising future for the application of these technologies in the prediction of risks and prevention of diseases related to chemical exposures. Currently adducts of chemicals with macromolecules are important and useful biomarkers especially for certain individual chemicals where there are incidences of occupational exposure. For monitoring exposure to genotoxic compounds protein adducts, such as those formed with haemoglobin, are considered effective biomarkers for determining individual exposure doses of reactive chemicals. For other organic chemicals, the excreted urinary metabolites can also give a useful and complementary indication of exposure for acute exposures. These methods have revealed ‘backgrounds’ in people not knowingly exposed to chemicals and the sources and significance of these need to be determined, particularly in the context of their contribution to background health risks.     

Role of biomarkers in monitoring exposures to chemicals: present position, future prospects

Biomarkers are becoming increasingly important in toxicology and human health. Many research groups are carrying out studies to develop biomarkers of exposure to chemicals and apply these for human monitoring. There is considerable interest in the use and application of biomarkers to identify the nature and amounts of chemical exposures in occupational and environmental situations. Major research goals are to develop and validate biomarkers that reflect specific exposures and permit the prediction of the risk of disease in individuals and groups. One important objective is to prevent human cancer. This review presents a commentary and consensus views about the major developments on biomarkers for monitoring human exposure to chemicals. A particular emphasis is on monitoring exposures to carcinogens. Significant developments in the areas of new and existing biomarkers, analytical methodologies, validation studies and field trials together with auditing and quality assessment of data are discussed. New developments in the relatively young field of toxicogenomics possibly leading to the identification of individual susceptibility to both cancer and non-cancer endpoints are also considered. The construction and development of reliable databases that integrate information from genomic and proteomic research programmes should offer a promising future for the application of these technologies in the prediction of risks and prevention of diseases related to chemical exposures. Currently adducts of chemicals with macromolecules are important and useful biomarkers especially for certain individual chemicals where there are incidences of occupational exposure. For monitoring exposure to genotoxic compounds protein adducts, such as those formed with haemoglobin, are considered effective biomarkers for determining individual exposure doses of reactive chemicals. For other organic chemicals, the excreted urinary metabolites can also give a useful and complementary indication of exposure for acute exposures. These methods have revealed 'backgrounds' in people not knowingly exposed to chemicals and the sources and significance of these need to be determined, particularly in the context of their contribution to background health risks.     

A new approach for environmental risk assessment

Environmental problems, such as global warming, the limited supply of sustainable energy, the depletion of natural resources, hazardous emissions released into the atmosphere and waste, are increasing global concerns. Therefore, individuals, communities, and businesses need to address environmental protection and sustainability. Environmental impact assessments are needed to identify, mitigate, and control aspects that affect the environment or a company's products, services, or activities. In this study, a general environmental aspect and impact assessment approach, which can be applied to any company that is involved in the production or service sector, is created. An environmental impact pattern that consists of 10 main and 32 sub-categories was formed based on the ISO 14001, environmental studies and field applications. The developed approach was applied to the dyeing units of a manufacturing firm. Sixteen environmental aspects were identified and assessed using the environmental impact template via the environmental failure mode and effect analysis (E-FMEA) method. The developed-approach can be applied to each sector, which will enable us to perform a detailed analysis of the environmental aspects in the environmental impact category. This approach provides a checklist for the environmental impact studies of businesses and has been pioneered as an effective method for company resources to improve their environmental performance.     

International programme on chemical safety (IPCS) environmental health criteria on boron human health risk assessment

The International Program on Chemical Safety (IPCS), a collaborative program of the United Nations Environment Program, the International Labour Organization (ILO), and the World Health Organization (WHO), includes the Environmental Health Criteria (EHC) Program inaugurated in 1973 by WHO. These EHC are integrated evaluations of the human health and environmental risks from exposure to specific chemicals carried out by a group of international scientists. Boron (B) was evaluated at an IPCS Task Group (TG) convened in November 1996. All TGs are convened under WHO rules and procedures. These procedures relate the overall process used to prepare an EHC including transparency of the process, conflict of interest, the roles of Members and Observers, and the conduct of the TG. The scope and purpose of an EHC, for an element such as B, and its possible role in national and international chemical safety programs will be discussed. In the early 1990s, countries asked that IPCS request TGs to prepare, where data permit, health-based guidance values (GVs) (both total daily intake and to recommend health-based guidelines for various environmental media). This final evaluation in an EHC reflects the collective consensus view of the TG Members. To foster the use of consistent methodology by TGs, IPCS prepared in 1994 an EHC on the methodology for the preparation of GVs for human exposure limits (EHC 170). In developing their final evaluation, TGs have been asked to consider using this methodology. This was done by the TG on B, and a total daily intake for humans of 0.4 mg/kg body wt was derived from animal studies of reproductive and developmental effects in rodents and pharmacokinetic data from both animals and humans. The application of the methodology described in EHC 170 regarding choice of critical effect and uncertainty factors will be discussed.     

表观遗传生物标志物在人类疾病早期诊治中的研究进展

表观遗传修饰异常见于人类的多种疾病(如肿瘤、老年性疾病、发育源性疾病等),影响着这些疾病的发生发展。已有的研究表明,异常表观遗传改变可以作为疾病状态和疾病预测的生物标志物。表观遗传修饰改变的可逆性和可控性也为疾病早期的预防和治疗提供了新策略。本文对DNA甲基化修饰、组蛋白共价修饰、非编码RNA等三种表观遗传方式在肿瘤、老年性疾病和发育源性疾病的研究,以及三者作为表遗传生物标志物在疾病早期诊断和治疗的应用展开介绍,以期为肿瘤、老年性和发育源性相关疾病的诊断与治疗提供借鉴和 参考。     

Integrated environmental risk assessment approach for transportation modes

Abstract

The main aim of this study is to develop and implement new integrated environmental risk assessment for transportation activities. With this purpose, environmental risks occur from transportation activities from different transportation modes which are air, road, sea and rail are determined. Transportation modes are compared with the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) approach in order to obtain importance weights and impact categories of air, soil and water are used as criteria where the weights are determined with Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). For the risk assessment process, Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) has been used and prioritizations of risks are calculated with weights of the calculated transportation modes. In the study, integrated multi-criteria decision-making methods with the classic FMEA method with different categories of impacts reveal new multidimensional perspective to classic environmental risk assessment methods.     

Exposure reconstruction for reducing uncertainty in risk assessment: example using MTBE biomarkers and a simple pharmacokinetic model

Adverse health risks from environmental agents are generally related to average (long-term) exposures. Because a given individual's contact with a pollutant is highly variable and dependent on activity patterns, local sources and exposure pathways, simple ‘snapshot’ measurements of surrounding environmental media may not accurately assign the exposure level. Furthermore, susceptibility to adverse effects from contaminants is considered highly variable in the population so that even similar environmental exposure levels may result in differential health outcomes in different individuals. The use of biomarker measurements coupled to knowledge of rates of uptake, metabolism and elimination has been suggested as a remedy for reducing this type of uncertainty. To demonstrate the utility of such an approach, we invoke results from a series of controlled human exposure tests and classical first-order rate kinetic calculations to estimate how well spot measurements of methyl tertiary butyl ether and the primary metabolite, tertiary butyl alcohol, can be expected to predict different hypothetical scenarios of previous exposures. We found that blood and breath biomarker measurements give similar results and that the biological damping effect of the metabolite production gives more stable estimates of previous exposure. We also explore the value of a potential urinary biomarker, 2-hydroxyisobutyrate suggested in the literature. We find that individual biomarker measurements are a valuable tool in reconstruction of previous exposures and that a simple pharmacokinetic model can identify the time frames over which an exogenous chemical and the related chemical biomarker are useful. These techniques could be applied to broader ranges of environmental contaminants to assess cumulative exposure risks if ADME (Absorption, Distribution, Metabolization and Excretion) is understood and systemic biomarkers can be measured.     

Exposure reconstruction for reducing uncertainty in risk assessment: example using MTBE biomarkers and a simple pharmacokinetic model

Adverse health risks from environmental agents are generally related to average (long-term) exposures. Because a given individual's contact with a pollutant is highly variable and dependent on activity patterns, local sources and exposure pathways, simple 'snapshot' measurements of surrounding environmental media may not accurately assign the exposure level. Furthermore, susceptibility to adverse effects from contaminants is considered highly variable in the population so that even similar environmental exposure levels may result in differential health outcomes in different individuals. The use of biomarker measurements coupled to knowledge of rates of uptake, metabolism and elimination has been suggested as a remedy for reducing this type of uncertainty. To demonstrate the utility of such an approach, we invoke results from a series of controlled human exposure tests and classical first-order rate kinetic calculations to estimate how well spot measurements of methyl tertiary butyl ether and the primary metabolite, tertiary butyl alcohol, can be expected to predict different hypothetical scenarios of previous exposures. We found that blood and breath biomarker measurements give similar results and that the biological damping effect of the metabolite production gives more stable estimates of previous exposure. We also explore the value of a potential urinary biomarker, 2-hydroxyisobutyrate suggested in the literature. We find that individual biomarker measurements are a valuable tool in reconstruction of previous exposures and that a simple pharmacokinetic model can identify the time frames over which an exogenous chemical and the related chemical biomarker are useful. These techniques could be applied to broader ranges of environmental contaminants to assess cumulative exposure risks if ADME (Absorption, Distribution, Metabolization and Excretion) is understood and systemic biomarkers can be measured.     

The modeling and health risk assessment of PM2.5 from Tema Oil Refinery

Fine particulate matters (PM_2.5) are known to pose serious health problems compared to other air pollutants. The current study employed air dispersion modeling system (AERMOD) to simulate the concentration of PM_2.5 from Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) and to assess the non-cancer risk and mortalities of the exposed population. In addition, the effects of local climatic factors on the distribution and concentration of PM_2.5 within the three main seasons (Major Raining Season (MRS), Low Raining Season (LRS) and Dry Season (DS)) were investigated. The AERMOD results showed that both 24-h (38.8 µg m^?3) and annual (12.6 µg m^?3) PM_2.5 concentration levels were in exceedance of the international limits. However, a decreasing trend in seasonal PM_2.5 concentrations was observed. Health risk assessment (HRA), indicated by hazard index (HI), revealed that the amount of Al₂O₃ present in the PM_2.5 caused a significant non-carcinogenic health risk to the exposed population (both adults and children) within the Metropolis (HI = 2.4 for adults and HI = 1.5 for children). Additionally, cardiopulmonary disease related mortalities due to PM_2.5 exposure (181 deaths for adults and 24 deaths for children) were found high compared to deaths caused by lung cancer (137 deaths for adults and 16 deaths for children).     

Uncertainty-based dynamic multimedia human health risk assessment for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in a land oil exploitation area

With the increasing development of the petrochemical industry and the growing demand for oil, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) pollutions in the environment, especially in petroleum exploitation areas, are caused by the discharge of waste from the petroleum extraction process into an environmental system. This study aims to develop a new health risk assessment approach based on interval dynamic multimedia fugacity (IDMF) model and uncertainty analysis that could analyze the human exposure risk level for PAH contamination. The developed IDM health risk assessment (IDMHRA) approach is applied to assess previous, current, and future risks at a case study site in Daqing, Heilongjiang, China, from 1985 to 2020 for model validation. The human health risk assessment results show that 11 PAHs (NAP, ANT, FLA, PYR, BaA, CHR, BbF, BkF, BaP, IPY, and DBA) in the study site require further remediation efforts in terms of their unacceptable non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risk. The results of risk source analysis reveal that soil media is the main risk pathway as compared with other exposure pathways. It can be seen that remediation process for soil contamination in the study site is urgently demanded. The assessment results demonstrate that the developed IDMHRA approach provides an effective tool for decision-makers and environmental managers to make remediation decisions in contaminated sites.     

Hydrogeochemical evolution and risk assessment of human health in a riverbank filtration site,northeastern China

Intensive agriculture and industrial activities have resulted in contamination in rivers and groundwater quality, which threatens human health. In this study, we used comprehensive physiochemical indicators to assess the quality of groundwater used for drinking and irrigation in addition to the potential risks to local residents in a riverbank filtration site. Human health risks through drinking water intake and dermal contact were also estimated. Moreover, we analyzed the spatial distribution regularities of health risk values in a riverbank filtration site. The assessment results revealed that NH₄–N, NO₂–N, F^?, Mn, and As are main contaminants affecting groundwater quality and that 62% of the total samples is suitable for a variety of purposes. All groundwater in the study area is suitable for irrigation based on the sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), residual sodium carbonate (RSC), Na percentage (%Na), and U.S. Salinity Laboratory (USSL) and Wilcox diagrams. The health risk assessment suggests that residents in the study area are at high health risk, and women and children face higher risk than men in both non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks. The spatial distribution regularities of health risk values suggest that the human health risk value of each groundwater sample is different in the study area and has certain regularity. Therefore, effective measurements must be taken to address the groundwater contamination and to reduce the human health risks.     

High-Throughput Exposure Assessment Tool (HEAT) for exposure-based prioritization of chemicals

Abstract

High-throughput methods are now routinely used to rapidly screen chemicals for potential hazard. However, hazard-based decision-making excludes important exposure considerations resulting in an incomplete estimation of chemical safety. Models to estimate exposure exist, but are generally unsuited to keep up with high-throughput demands. The High-Throughput Exposure Assessment Tool (HEAT) is designed to efficiently predict near-field exposure to consumers and workers via inhalation, oral and dermal routes. HEAT is based on well-known modeling algorithms and provides default model parameters to support reasonably conservative exposure estimates. Underlying chemical-specific data are uploaded or entered by the end user. HEAT’s main strength is the flexible tiered screening functionality, which enables exposure estimates for single or multiple chemicals simultaneously. Hypothetical case examples highlighting the application of HEAT to more complex exposure estimates for alternative and aggregate assessments are provided.     

Contamination and environmental risk assessment of heavy metals in marine sediments from Tahaddart estuary (NW of Morocco)

Abstract

The distribution, contamination status, and ecological risks of heavy metals in Tahaddart estuary were investigated. 24 surface sediment samples and two cores were collected and analyzed for major (Al and Fe), heavy metals (As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn), and grain size composition. The heavy metals assessment was carried out using different environmental indices. The results indicated that the spatial distribution patterns of Al, Fe, and Zn were mainly determined by the distribution of the finer grained fraction (<63?μm) in the sediment. In contrast, As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, and Pb concentrations were controlled by anthropogenic activities (vehicular traffic from Highway Bridge and thermal power plant). The distribution of heavy metals in sediment cores showed an upward enrichment in heavy metals with high concentration found in the uppermost may related to the increasing in human activities. The pollution indexes confirmed that the Tahaddart estuary sediment was considerably to high contaminated by heavy metals near to different anthropogenic inputs. Similarly, the potential ecological risk index and the biological risk index present 21% probability of toxicity posing potential risk to the aquatic organisms. These results provide basic information that can be used to protect and improve the quality of this ecosystem.