Correction to: Health effects of nutrients and environmental pollutants in Baltic herring and salmon: a quantitative benefit-risk assessment.

It was highlighted that the original article [1] contained a formatting error in the equations.

Health effects of nutrients and environmental pollutants in Baltic herring and salmon: a quantitative benefit-risk assessment.

BACKGROUND: Health risks linked with dioxin in fish remain a complex policy issue. Fatty Baltic fish contain persistent pollutants, but they are otherwise healthy food. We studied the health benefits and risks associated with Baltic herring and salmon in four countries to identify critical uncertainties and to facilitate an evidence-based discussion. METHODS: We performed an online survey investigating consumers' fish consumption and its motivation in Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Sweden. Dioxin and methylmercury concentrations were estimated based on Finnish studies. Exposure-response functions for several health endpoints were evaluated and quantified based on the scientific literature. We also quantified the infertility risk of men based on a recent European risk assessment estimating childhood dioxin exposure and its effect on sperm concentration later in life. RESULTS: Baltic herring and salmon contain omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D, and the beneficial impact of these fishes on cardiovascular diseases, mortality, and the risk of depression and cancer clearly outweighs risks of dioxins and methylmercury in people older than 45 years of age and in young men. Young women may expose their children to pollutants during pregnancy and breast feeding. This study suggests that even in this critical subgroup, the risks are small and the health benefits are greater than or at least similar to the health risks. Value of information analysis demonstrated that the remaining scientific uncertainties are not large. In contrast, there are several critical uncertainties that are inherently value judgements, such as whether exceeding the tolerable weekly intake is an adverse outcome as such; and whether or not subgroup-specific restrictions are problematic. CONCLUSIONS: The potential health risks attributable to dioxins in Baltic fish have more than halved in the past 10 years. The new risk assessment issued by the European Food Safety Authority clearly increases the fraction of the population exceeding the tolerable dioxin intake, but nonetheless, quantitative estimates of net health impacts change only marginally. Increased use of small herring (which have less pollutants) is a no-regret option. A more relevant value-based policy discussion rather than research is needed to clarify official recommendations related to dioxins in fish.

Corrigendum to "City scale climate change policies: Do they matter for wellbeing?" [Prev. Med. Rep. 6 (2017) 265-270].

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1016/j.pmedr.2017.03.019.].

Health Impacts of Ambient Air Pollution in Finland.

Air pollution has been estimated to be one of the leading environmental health risks in Finland. National health impact estimates existing to date have focused on particles (PM) and ozone (O3). In this work, we quantify the impacts of particles, ozone, and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in 2015, and analyze the related uncertainties. The exposures were estimated with a high spatial resolution chemical transport model, and adjusted to observed concentrations. We calculated the health impacts according to Word Health Organization (WHO) working group recommendations. According to our results, ambient air pollution caused a burden of 34,800 disability-adjusted life years (DALY). Fine particles were the main contributor (74%) to the disease burden, which is in line with the earlier studies. The attributable burden was dominated by mortality (32,900 years of life lost (YLL); 95%). Impacts differed between population age groups. The burden was clearly higher in the adult population over 30 years (98%), due to the dominant role of mortality impacts. Uncertainties due to the concentration-response functions were larger than those related to exposures.

City scale climate change policies: Do they matter for wellbeing?

Climate change mitigation policies aim to reduce climate change through reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions whereas adaption policies seek to enable humans to live in a world with increasingly variable and more extreme climatic conditions. It is increasingly realised that enacting such policies will have unintended implications for public health, but there has been less focus on their implications for wellbeing. Wellbeing can be defined as a positive mental state which is influenced by living conditions. As part of URGENCHE, an EU funded project to identify health and wellbeing outcomes of city greenhouse gas emission reduction policies, a survey designed to measure these living conditions and levels of wellbeing in Kuopio, Finland was collected in December 2013. Kuopio was the northmost among seven cities in Europe and China studied. Generalised estimating equation modelling was used to determine which living conditions were associated with subjective wellbeing (measured through the WHO-5 Scale). Local greenspace and spending time in nature were associated with higher levels of wellbeing whereas cold housing and poor quality indoor air were associated with lower levels of wellbeing. Thus adaption policies to increase greenspace might, in addition to reducing heat island effects, have the co-benefit of increasing wellbeing and improving housing insulation.

Challenges in estimating health effects of indoor exposures to outdoor particles: Considerations for regional differences.

Ambient air pollution is a leading environmental risk factor causing substantial losses of life and significant morbidity. Concentration-response (CR) functions used globally to estimate such effects are largely based on ambient epidemiology, using centrally monitored outdoor air quality as an exposure indicator and various indices of population health as an outcome. Similar common understanding is mostly missing regarding indoor exposures. Less studied are health impact modifying factors such as particle size, infiltration, time-activity and population differences. In this discussion paper we aim at looking at one of these, infiltration. The sensitivity of overall personal exposure to indoor exposures was quantified by a simple probabilistic time-activity model to calculate fractional exposures for indoor, outdoor and in traffic time-activity. To demonstrate the potential regional differences in epidemiological C-R relationships we re-analysed the ESCAPE results for natural-cause mortality, focusing on geographical grouping of the cohorts: pooled estimates were calculated for the Nordic, Central European and Southern European cohorts. When comparing the relative differences in the regional hazard ratio increments, the Central European value (7%) is 1.75 times higher than the Nordic one, and Southern European value (12%) 3 times higher, respectively. While towards the expected direction when aiming to explain these differences at least partly with differences in PM2.5 infiltration, the differences are not statistically significant and only the Central European and the all cohorts combined estimates reach borderline statistical significance. As the analysis of PM2.5 infiltration factors by similar regions yielded only 10-15% differences, it seems possible that that the available data could also accommodate other regional factors, such as those originating from regional differences in population and contribution of indoor sources of PM, time-activity, behaviour, or compositional differences in the particulate matter.

Public health impacts of city policies to reduce climate change: findings from the URGENCHE EU-China project.

BACKGROUND: Climate change is a global threat to health and wellbeing. Here we provide findings of an international research project investigating the health and wellbeing impacts of policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in urban environments. METHODS: Five European and two Chinese city authorities and partner academic organisations formed the project consortium. The methodology involved modelling the impact of adopted urban climate-change mitigation transport, buildings and energy policy scenarios, usually for the year 2020 and comparing them with business as usual (BAU) scenarios (where policies had not been adopted). Carbon dioxide emissions, health impacting exposures (air pollution, noise and physical activity), health (cardiovascular, respiratory, cancer and leukaemia) and wellbeing (including noise related wellbeing, overall wellbeing, economic wellbeing and inequalities) were modelled. The scenarios were developed from corresponding known levels in 2010 and pre-existing exposure response functions. Additionally there were literature reviews, three longitudinal observational studies and two cross sectional surveys. RESULTS: There are four key findings. Firstly introduction of electric cars may confer some small health benefits but it would be unwise for a city to invest in electric vehicles unless their power generation fuel mix generates fewer emissions than petrol and diesel. Second, adopting policies to reduce private car use may have benefits for carbon dioxide reduction and positive health impacts through reduced noise and increased physical activity. Third, the benefits of carbon dioxide reduction from increasing housing efficiency are likely to be minor and co-benefits for health and wellbeing are dependent on good air exchange. Fourthly, although heating dwellings by in-home biomass burning may reduce carbon dioxide emissions, consequences for health and wellbeing were negative with the technology in use in the cities studied. CONCLUSIONS: The climate-change reduction policies reduced CO2 emissions (the most common greenhouse gas) from cities but impact on global emissions of CO2 would be more limited due to some displacement of emissions. The health and wellbeing impacts varied and were often limited reflecting existing relatively high quality of life and environmental standards in most of the participating cities; the greatest potential for future health benefit occurs in less developed or developing countries.

Reducing burden of disease from residential indoor air exposures in Europe (HEALTHVENT project).

BACKGROUND: The annual burden of disease caused indoor air pollution, including polluted outdoor air used to ventilate indoor spaces, is estimated to correspond to a loss of over 2 million healthy life years in the European Union (EU). Based on measurements of the European Environment Agency (EEA), approximately 90 % of EU citizens live in areas where the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for air quality of particulate matter sized < 2.5 mm (PM2.5) are not met. Since sources of pollution reside in both indoor and outdoor air, selecting the most appropriate ventilation strategy is not a simple and straightforward task. METHODS: A framework for developing European health-based ventilation guidelines was created in 2010-2013 in the EU-funded HEALTHVENT project. As a part of the project, the potential efficiency of control policies to health effects caused by residential indoor exposures of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), outdoor bioaerosols, volatile organic compounds (VOC), carbon oxide (CO) radon and dampness was estimated. The analysis was based on scenario comparison, using an outdoor-indoor mass-balance model and varying the ventilation rates. Health effects were estimated with burden of diseases (BoD) calculations taking into account asthma, cardiovascular (CV) diseases, acute toxication, respiratory infections, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). RESULTS: The quantitative comparison of three main policy approaches, (i) optimising ventilation rates only; (ii) filtration of outdoor air; and (iii) indoor source control, showed that all three approaches are able to provide substantial reductions in the health risks, varying from approximately 20 % to 44 %, corresponding to 400 000 and 900 000 saved healthy life years in EU-26. PM2.5 caused majority of the health effects in all included countries, but the importance of the other pollutants varied by country. CONCLUSIONS: The present modelling shows, that combination of controlling the indoor air sources and selecting appropriate ventilation rate was the most effective to reduce health risks. If indoor sources cannot be removed or their emissions cannot be limited to an accepted level, ventilation needs to be increased to remove remaining pollutants. In these cases filtration of outdoor air may be needed to prevent increase of health risks.

Building-related health impacts in European and Chinese cities: a scalable assessment method.

BACKGROUND: Public health is often affected by societal decisions that are not primarily about health. Climate change mitigation requires intensive actions to minimise greenhouse gas emissions in the future. Many of these actions take place in cities due to their traffic, buildings, and energy consumption. Active climate mitigation policies will also, aside of their long term global impacts, have short term local impacts, both positive and negative, on public health. Our main objective was to develop a generic open impact model to estimate health impacts of emissions due to heat and power consumption of buildings. In addition, the model should be usable for policy comparisons by non-health experts on city level with city-specific data, it should give guidance on the particular climate mitigation questions but at the same time increase understanding on the related health impacts and the model should follow the building stock in time, make comparisons between scenarios, propagate uncertainties, and scale to different levels of detail. We tested The functionalities of the model in two case cities, namely Kuopio and Basel. We estimated the health and climate impacts of two actual policies planned or implemented in the cities. The assessed policies were replacement of peat with wood chips in co-generation of district heat and power, and improved energy efficiency of buildings achieved by renovations. RESULTS: Health impacts were not large in the two cities, but also clear differences in implementation and predictability between the two tested policies were seen. Renovation policies can improve the energy efficiency of buildings and reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly, but this requires systematic policy sustained for decades. In contrast, fuel changes in large district heating facilities may have rapid and large impacts on emissions. However, the life cycle impacts of different fuels is somewhat an open question. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, we were able to develop a practical model for city-level assessments promoting evidence-based policy in general and health aspects in particular. Although all data and code is freely available, implementation of the current model version in a new city requires some modelling skills.

Structure-based classification of active and inactive estrogenic compounds by decision tree, LVQ and kNN methods.

The performance of decision tree (DT), learning vector quantization (LVQ), and k-nearest neighbour (kNN) methods classifying active and inactive estrogenic compounds in terms of their structure activity relationship (SAR) was evaluated. A set of 311 compounds was used for construction of the models, the predictive power of which was verified with separate training and test sets. Principal components derived from molecular descriptors calculated with DRAGON software were used as variables representing the structures of the compounds. Broadly, kNN had the best classification ability and DT the weakest, although the performance of each method was dependent on the group of compounds used for modelling. The best performance was obtained with kNN for the calf estrogen receptor data, averaging 98.3% of correctly classified compounds in the external tests. Overall, the results indicate that all the methods tested are suitable for the SAR classification of estrogenic compounds, producing models with a predictive power ranging from adequate to excellent.

Chemical inhibition of PCDD/F formation in incineration processes.

This review summarises results of our pilot-scale experiments to find suitable inhibitors for preventing the formation of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/F) during waste incineration and to specify the role of the main factors affecting the inhibition process, and is based on doctoral dissertation of Ruokojaärvi (2002). Results of previous experiments reported by other researchers are also presented and compared with ours. The detailed aims of our experiments were (1) to compare the effects of different inhibitors on PCDD/F formation during incineration in a pilot plant, (2) to investigate the role of the particle size distribution of the flue gas on the inhibition of PCDD/Fs, and (3) to find the main parameters affecting PCDD/F inhibition in waste incineration. Prevention of the formation of PCDD/Fs with chemical inhibitors and the effects of different supply points, feed temperatures and process parameters were studied in a pilot scale incinerator (50 kW) using light heating oil and refuse-derived fuel as test fuels. Various concentrations of the gaseous inhibitors (sulfur dioxide, ammonia, dimethylamine and methyl mercaptan) were sprayed into the flue gases after the furnace, in addition to which urea was dissolved in water and injected in at different concentrations. The residence time of the flue gas between the furnace and the PCDD/F sampling point was varied in the tests. In another set of urea tests, urea-water solutions at three concentrations were mixed with the RDF prior to incineration. PCDD/F and chlorophenol concentrations, together with other flue gas parameters (e.g. temperature, O2, CO, CO2 and NO), were analysed in the cooling flue gases. The gaseous and liquid inhibitors both notably reduced PCDD/F concentrations in the flue gas, the reductions achieved with the gaseous inhibitors varying from 50 to 78%, with dimethyl amine the most effective, while that produced with urea was up to 90%. The PCDD/F reductions were greater at increased inhibitor concentrations and with increased residence time of the flue gas between the furnace and the sampling point. PCDD/F concentrations in the particle phase decreased much more markedly than those in the gas phase. The urea inhibitor did not alter the particle size distribution of the PCDD/Fs when the amount of inhibitor was adequate. Chemical inhibitors seem to offer a very promising technique for preventing the formation of PCDD/Fs in waste incineration. The addition of urea to the fuel before combustion proved to be very effective approach and could be a useful technique even in the full-scale incinerators.

Consensus kNN QSAR: a versatile method for predicting the estrogenic activity of organic compounds in silico. A comparative study with five estrogen receptors and a large, diverse set of ligands.

Quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSARs) have proved increasingly useful for predicting the biological activities of molecules (e.g., their binding affinities to different receptors) and can be used in environmental chemistry as a preliminary tool for screening the activities of untested molecules, producing valuable information on which compounds should be tested more thoroughly with experimental affinity assays or in animals. The predictive ability of the consensus kNN QSAR method is corroborated here using a diverse set of 245 compounds, which have been assayed for their relative binding affinities to the estrogen receptor of four species: human (ER alpha and ER beta), calf, mouse, and rat. Leave-one-out cross-validation (LOO-CV) and gamma-randomization tests were applied to the QSAR models for internal validation, and separate training and test sets were used for external validation. The internal predictive abilities of the consensus models for all five data sets were convincing, with cross-validated correlation coefficients (LOO-CV q2 values) varying from 0.69 (human ER beta data) to 0.79 (human ER alpha data). The external predictive abilities were also encouraging, as the predictive r2 scores (pr-r2 values) varied from 0.62 (human ER beta data) to 0.77 (calf and mouse data). The results indicate that consensus kNN QSAR is a feasible method for rapid screening of the estrogenic activity of organic compounds.

Spectroscopic QSAR methods and self-organizing molecular field analysis for relating molecular structure and estrogenic activity.

The performance of three "spectroscopic" quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) methods (eigenvalue (EVA), electronic eigenvalue (EEVA), and comparative spectra analysis (CoSA)) for relating molecular structure and estrogenic activity are critically evaluated. The methods were tested with respect to the relative binding affinities (RBA) of a diverse set of 36 estrogens previously examined in detail by the comparative molecular field analysis method. The CoSA method with (13)C chemical shifts appears to provide a predictive QSAR model for this data set. EEVA (i.e., molecular orbital energy in this context) is a borderline case, whereas the performances of EVA (i.e., vibrational normal mode) and CoSA with (1)H shifts are substandard and only semiquantitative. The CoSA method with (13)C chemical shifts provides an alternative and supplement to conventional 3D QSAR methods for rationalizing and predicting the estrogenic activity of molecules. If CoSA is to be applied to large data sets, however, it is desirable that the chemical shifts are available from common databases or, alternatively, that they can be estimated with sufficient accuracy using fast prediction schemes. Calculations of NMR chemical shifts by quantum mechanical methods, as in this case study, seem to be too time-consuming at this moment, but the situation is changing rapidly. An inherent shortcoming common to all spectroscopic QSAR methods is that they cannot take the chirality of molecules into account, at least as formulated at present. Moreover, the symmetry of molecules may cause additional problems. There are three pairs of enantiomers and nine symmetric (C(2) or C(2)(v)) molecules present in the data set, so that the predictive ability of full 3D QSAR methods is expected to be better than that of spectroscopic methods. This is demonstrated with SOMFA (self-organizing molecular field analysis). In general, the use of external test sets with randomized data is encouraged as a validation tool in QSAR studies.

Perspectives on the formation of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans during municipal solid waste (MSW) incineration and other combustion processes.

The pathways by which polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) are formed and the interactions between their aromatic precursors, in particular chlorophenols (ClPhs), and transition metal catalysts are discussed. A literature survey and data from pilot-scale combustion experiments allow conclusions to be drawn on the relations between ClPhs and PCDD/Fs in municipal waste incineration and other combustion processes. The results suggest that the ClPh pathway is among the most important for the formation of PCDD/Fs.

Predictive value of comparative molecular field analysis modelling of naphthalene inhibition of human CYP2A6 and mouse CYP2A5 enzymes.

The objects of this study were first to compare how well the recently constructed structure-inhibition activity relationship models of mouse CYP2A5 and human CYP2A6 predict the interaction of naphthalene in liver microsomes and secondly to study if these CYP enzymes actually oxidize naphthalene. The CoMFA model of CYP2A5 predicted the IC(50) value of naphthalene to be 42 microM (18-115 microM 95% CL) whereas in the in vitro experiment the result was 74 microM (65-83 microM) with the corresponding values for CYP2A6 being 41 microM (18-112 microM) and 25 microM (21-30 microM), respectively. Naphthalene appeared to be a competitive inhibitor both for mouse and human liver microsomal coumarin 7-hydroxylase, which is the specific probe activity for CYP2A5 and CYP2A6. The K(i)-value for the mouse enzyme was between 12-26 microM and for the human enzyme 1.2-5.6 microM. A 1-h in vitro incubation of naphthalene with human and pyrazole treated mouse liver microsomes produced more 1-naphthol than 2-naphthol. Antibody against the purified CYP2A5 inhibited 50-60% of the formation of 1-naphthol and 30-40% of the formation of 2-naphthol. These results indicate that in silico CoMFA models predict relatively well the interaction of naphthalene with CYP2A5 and CYP2A6 and that these CYPs actually oxidize naphthalene in vitro. CoMFA CYP2A5 and CYP2A6 models are thus useful as a technique for elucidating the interaction and potency of untested chemicals with these CYPs.

Occurrence and destruction of PAHs, PCBs, CIPhs, CIBzs, and PCDD/Fs in ash from gasification of straw.

Two experiments were performed with an atmospheric circulating fluidized bed gasifier (ACFBG), the first with pelletized straw and the second with loose straw, to investigate the occurrence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), chlorophenols (CIPhs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polychlorinated benzenes (ClBzs), polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs), and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs) in the bottom ash and fly ash formed during gasification. Only PAHs were present in large amounts, and only in the fly ash, ranging from 300 to 555 mg/kg ash in the tests with pelletized straw and from 73 to 118 mg/kg ash in those with loose straw. These amounts are so high that environmentally safe disposal or reuse of the ash would be difficult, so the development of a technique to handle the problem was included in the project. The method investigated was to burn the fly ash in a circulating fluidized bed (CFB) boiler in order to destroy the PAHs. This worked surprisingly well, eliminating 99% of the PAHs, without any further formation of the other harmful organic compounds analyzed. Thus, this method could actually be useful in practice. Especially the fact that the formation of PCDD/Fs was minimal during gasification and further treatment of the ash in the CFB boiler makes the gasification technique highly competitive relative to conventional combustion methods.