Recomendaciones de salud ambiental para espacios comunitarios cerrados: ancianatos, orfelinatos y otros lugares residenciales colectivos / Environmental Public Health Recommendations for Collective Residential Places: Nursing Homes, Orphanages, and Other Collective Residential Places / Recomendações de saúde ambiental para espaços comunitários fechados asilos, orfanatos e outros locais de residência coletiva

Los ancianatos, orfelinatos y otros lugares residenciales colectivos que prestan servicios a grupos de personas en condiciones de vulnerabilidad son fundamentales para el bienestar de la sociedad. Es muy importante que estos espacios comunitarios cerrados cuenten con condiciones ambientales y de higiene adecuadas para proteger la salud de los cuidadores, visitantes y los residentes (ancianos, niños). Esta nota incluye recomendaciones para proteger la salud durante la pandemia de COVID-19. Instruir a los cuidadores, personal de servicio, residentes, familia y visitantes en las indicaciones de esta ficha técnica.

This technical note presents the main recommendations for collective residential places that provide services to groups of people in vulnerable conditions, such as nursing homes and orphanages, in the areas of drinking water, hand washing, surface cleaning, laundry, ventilation, and management of solid waste. Additionally, recommendations are provided to prepare 0.05% and 0.1% sodium hypochlorite solutions, depending on the needs for cleaning and prevention against SARS-COV-2 and other infectious agents.

Os asilos, orfanatos e outros locais de residência coletiva que prestam serviços a grupos de pessoas em condições de vulnerabilidade são fundamentais para o bem-estar da sociedade. É muito importante que esses espaços comunitários fechados tenham condições ambientais e de higiene adequadas para proteger a saúde dos cuidadores, visitantes e residentes (idosos e crianças). Este documento inclui recomendações para proteger a saúde durante a pandemia de COVID-19. Instruir cuidadores, equipe de serviço, residentes, familiares e visitantes com as indicações desta ficha técnica.

Recomendaciones para la limpieza y desinfección en sitios de concentración de personas privadas de la libertad: penitenciarías, cárceles y centros de detención de migrantes, 11 de mayo del 2020 / Recommendations for the Cleaning and Disinfection of Sites Where People are Closely Confined and Deprived of Their Liberty: Penitentiaries, Prisons, and Migrant Detention Centers / Recomendações para a limpeza e desinfecção em locais de concentração de pessoas privadas de liberdade. Penitenciárias, cadeias, centros de detenção de imigrantes, 11 de maio de 2020

Proveer estaciones de lavado de manos a los privados de libertad y al personal de los centros penitenciarios para su uso constante. • Realizar lavado de las manos con agua y jabón durante 40-60 segundos frecuentemente y por lo menos en los momentos críticos (antes y después de comer; antes y después de preparar comida; después de ir al baño; antes y después de realizar una tarea de limpieza; antes y después de tocar dinero), secarse las manos con una toalla de papel y usar toalla de papel para cerrar el grifo. En caso de que no se encuentre disponible ni agua ni jabón, usar solución de gel de alcohol al 70%. • Asegurar la dotación permanentemente de agua segura, jabón, papel higiénico y papel toalla, para la higiene de manos, y pañuelos de papel para higiene respiratoria. • Evitar la sobrepoblación/hacinamiento en las celdas de la instalación penitenciaria correspondiente. • Asegurar la buena ventilación y luz natural de los espacios además de evitar condiciones de confinamiento. Esto puede incluir la apertura de ventanas al exterior cuando hay poca contaminación al aire libre. • Ofrecer dieta balanceada y asegurar la inocuidad de alimentos a los privados de libertad. • El personal de los centros penitenciarios con síntomas respiratorios no debe acudir a trabajar.

This technical note presents main considerations and recommendations regarding individual hygiene, self-care, and hand washing, and suggestions for cleaning and disinfecting places where people are confined and deprived of their liberty. Additionally, it contains recommendations for preparing 0.05% and 0.1% sodium hypochlorite solutions, depending on the needs for cleaning and prevention against SARS-COV-2 and other infectious agents.

Recomendações gerais: • Disponibilizar estações de lavagem de mãos para uso constante das pessoas privadas de liberdade e dos funcionários dos centros penitenciários. • Lavar frequentemente as mãos com água e sabão por 40 a 60 segundos e pelo menos nos momentos críticos (antes e depois de comer, antes e depois de preparar alimentos, depois de usar o banheiro, antes e depois de realizar uma tarefa de limpeza, antes e depois de tocar em dinheiro), secar as mãos com toalha de papel e usar toalha de papel para fechar a torneira. Se não houver água e sabão, usar álcool gel 70%. • Garantir o fornecimento permanente de água potável, sabão, papel higiênico e toalhas de papel, para a higiene das mãos, e lenços de papel para a higiene respiratória. • Evitar a superlotação nas celas da instalação prisional. • Garantir uma boa ventilação e iluminação natural dos espaços e evitar condições de confinamento. Isso pode incluir a abertura de janelas para ventilação, quando houver pouca poluição atmosférica externa. • Oferecer uma dieta balanceada e garantir a inocuidade dos alimentos servidos às pessoas privadas de liberdade. • Os funcionários dos centros penitenciários com sintomas respiratórios não devem ir ao trabalho.

Development of an environmental health tool linking chemical exposures, physical location and lung function.

BACKGROUND: A challenge in environmental health research is collecting robust data sets to facilitate comparisons between personal chemical exposures, the environment and health outcomes. To address this challenge, the Exposure, Location and lung Function (ELF) tool was designed in collaboration with communities that share environmental health concerns. These concerns centered on respiratory health and ambient air quality. The ELF collects exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), given their association with diminished lung function. Here, we describe the ELF as a novel environmental health assessment tool. METHODS: The ELF tool collects chemical exposure for 62 PAHs using passive sampling silicone wristbands, geospatial location data and respiratory lung function measures using a paired hand-held spirometer. The ELF was tested by 10 individuals with mild to moderate asthma for 7 days. Participants wore a wristband each day to collect PAH exposure, carried a cell phone, and performed spirometry daily to collect respiratory health measures. Location data was gathered using the geospatial positioning system technology in an Android cell-phone. RESULTS: We detected and quantified 31 PAHs across the study population. PAH exposure data showed spatial and temporal sensitivity within and between participants. Location data was used with existing datasets such as the Toxics Release Inventory and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Hazard Mapping System. Respiratory health outcomes were validated using criteria from the American Thoracic Society with 94% of participant data meeting standards. Finally, the ELF was used with a high degree of compliance (> 90%) by community members. CONCLUSIONS: The ELF is a novel environmental health assessment tool that allows for personal data collection spanning chemical exposures, location and lung function measures as well as self-reported information.

Building Data and Information Capacity in Environmental Public Health: A Best-Worst Scaling Experiment.

CONTEXT: Environmental public health practitioners rely on information technology (IT) to maintain and improve environmental health. However, current systems have limited capacity. A better understanding of the importance of IT features is needed to enhance data and information capacity. OBJECTIVE: (1) Rank IT features according to the percentage of respondents who rated them as essential to an information management system and (2) quantify the relative importance of a subset of these features using best-worst scaling. DESIGN: Information technology features were initially identified from a previously published systematic review of software evaluation criteria and a list of software options from a private corporation specializing in inspection software. Duplicates and features unrelated to environmental public health were removed. The condensed list was refined by a working group of environmental public health management to a final list of 57 IT features. The essentialness of features was electronically rated by environmental public health managers. Features where 50% to 80% of respondents rated them as essential (n = 26) were subsequently evaluated using best-worst scaling. SETTING: Ontario, Canada. PARTICIPANTS: Environmental public health professionals in local public health. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Importance scores of IT features. RESULTS: The majority of IT features (47/57) were considered essential to an information management system by at least half of the respondents (n = 52). The highest-rated features were delivery to printer, software encryption capability, and software maintenance services. Of the 26 features evaluated in the best-worst scaling exercise, the most important features were orientation to all practice areas, off-line capability, and ability to view past inspection reports and results. CONCLUSIONS: The development of a single, unified environmental public health information management system that fulfills the reporting and functionality needs of system users is recommended. This system should be implemented by all public health units to support data and information capacity in local environmental public health. This study can be used to guide vendor evaluation, negotiation, and selection in local environmental public health, and provides an example of academia-practice partnerships and the use of best-worst scaling in public health research.

Hearing protection devices: Use at work predicts use at play.

Use of hearing protection devices (HPDs) at work is widespread and well researched, but less is known about HPD use in high-noise leisure activities. We investigated HPD use of 8,144 Australians in leisure settings. An online survey asked questions about HPD use at work and leisure and examined whether age, gender, HPD use at work, and tinnitus predicted HPD use in leisure activities. Leisure-based HPD use was most common during high-risk work-related activities. Use of HPDs at work was the most significant predictor of leisure-based use, with workplace users up to 5 times more likely to use HPDs at leisure. Men were significantly more likely than women to use HPDs in 10/20 leisure activities, and those with tinnitus were more likely than those without to use HPDs in 8/20 activities. Older participants were more likely to use HPDs at nightclubs and concerts, but younger participants were more likely to use HPDs playing e-games and musical instruments.

Hans Jonas: conservación de la naturaleza, conservación de la vida / Hans Jonas: nature conservation, conservation of life

En este artículo se tratan varios problemas relacionados entre sí que el filósofo alemán Hans Jonas estudió. El primero de ellos es la necesidad de una ética específica dedicada a la dimensión moral de los problemas ambientales, desde una perspectiva distinta a la tradicional. El segundo problema ocupa un lugar central en la discusión en ética ambiental: el valor de la naturaleza. ¿Tiene valor intrínseco o sólo un valor instrumental (para satisfacer los intereses del ser humano)? A este respecto se expone la tesis de Jonas según la cual la naturaleza no sólo tiene valor intrínseco, sino que constituye un bien en sí misma. Y el tercer problema es la derivación de normas morales y el papel del hombre en esta ética que reconoce un bien en sí en la naturaleza. Según Jonas, el ser humano no se ve devaluado al reconocer el valor intrínseco de la naturaleza, pues la excepcionalidad y el valor de aquel son incuestionables. A partir de estas tres cuestiones centrales, se resalta la importancia de buscar los lazos que unen la bioética y la ética ambiental para encarar la crisis ambiental, social y económica del momento presente

This article discusses three of the problems that the German philosopher Hans Jonas studied. The first one addresses the need for a specific ethic dedicated to the moral dimension of environmental problems, from a different perspective to the traditional. The second problem is crucial in the discussion on environmental ethics: the value of the nature. Does the nature have an intrinsic value or an instrumental value only (to satisfy the interests of the human being)? The thesis of Jonas, which claimed that nature is a good in itself, were further elaborated here. And the third problem is the derivation of moral norms and the role of man in this ethic that recognizes a good in itself in nature. According to Jonas, the human being is not diminished by recognizing the intrinsic value of nature, since the man’s uniqueness and value are unquestionable. From these three central issues, the paper highlights the importance of seeking the links between bioethics and environmental ethics to address the current environmental, social and economic crisis

Multiple measures on the Environmental Public Health Tracking Network.

SETTING: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Environmental Public Health Tracking Program is leading an initiative to build a National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network (Tracking Network) that integrates data into a network of standardized electronic data to provide valid scientific information on environmental exposures and adverse health conditions, as well as spatial and temporal relations between them. The Web-based Tracking Network is designed for different audiences including government, the academic community, and the public. A primary goal of the Tracking Network is to allow the exploration of data on health effects, environments, and demographics. The wide variety of data types along with stratifications present a complex problem when developing system functionality to query and display disparate data simultaneously in a comparable way using charts, tables, and maps. OBJECTIVE: While the ability to query and display data that span across geographies and multiple time periods for a single type of data has been the main feature set of the Tracking Network, allowing the same for multiple data types is needed to enable users to explore trends and possible associations among health and environmental data. METHODS: As a first step, a multidisciplinary team was formed to address complex issues related to developing the ability to view multiple measures on the Tracking Network. The team then iterated through steps involving requirements gathering, the segmentation of the requirements into functional areas, submission of proposals to address those functional areas, and finally evaluation of the proposals to address functional areas. CONCLUSIONS: Adding the ability to view multiple measures is an important step to improve Tracking Network users' exploration of the environmental health status of their communities. With this capability, public health practitioners and other users can formulate hypotheses, analyze trends, and explore possible relationships across a wide variety of environmental and health information.

Developing a smartphone interface for the Florida Environmental Public Health Tracking Web portal.

As smartphone and tablet devices continue to proliferate, it is becoming increasingly important to tailor information delivery to the mobile device. The Florida Environmental Public Health Tracking Program recognized that the mobile device user needs Web content formatted to smaller screen sizes, simplified data displays, and reduced textual information. The Florida Environmental Public Health Tracking Program developed a smartphone-friendly version of the state Web portal for easier access by mobile device users. The resulting smartphone-friendly portal combines calculated data measures such as inpatient hospitalizations and emergency department visits and presents them grouped by county, along with temporal trend graphs. An abbreviated version of the public health messaging provided on the traditional Web portal is also provided, along with social media connections. As a result of these efforts, the percentage of Web site visitors using an iPhone tripled in just 1 year.

National-level differences in the adoption of environmental health technologies: a cross-border comparison from Benin and Togo.

Environmental health problems such as malaria, respiratory infections, diarrhoea and malnutrition pose very high burdens on the poor rural people in much of the tropics. Recent research on key interventions-the adoption and use of relatively cheap and effective environmental health technologies-has focused primarily on the influence of demand-side household-level drivers. Relatively few studies of the promotion and use of these technologies have considered the role of contextual factors such as governance, the enabling environment and national policies because of the challenges of cross-country comparisons. We exploit a natural experimental setting by comparing household adoption across the Benin-Togo national border that splits the Tamberma Valley in West Africa. Households across the border share the same culture, ethnicity, weather, physiographic features, livelihoods and infrastructure; however, they are located in countries at virtually opposite ends of the institutional spectrum of democratic elections, voice and accountability, effective governance and corruption. Binary choice models and rigorous non-parametric matching estimators confirm that households in Benin are more likely than households in Togo to plant soybeans, build improved cookstoves and purchase mosquito nets, ceteris paribus. Although we cannot identify the exact mechanism for the large and significant national-level differences in technology adoption, our findings suggest that contextual institutional factors can be more important than household characteristics for technology adoption.

Novel sensor technologies towards environmental health monitoring in urban environments: a case study in the Niger Delta (Nigeria).

The Niger Delta (Nigeria) is an exemplar of a legacy of environmental pollution. Limited knowledge on spatial and temporal pollutant distributions in the region highlights the need for biomonitoring approaches to study impacts on sentinel organisms. This study evaluated whether infrared (IR) spectroscopy and multivariate analysis could detect alterations in biomolecules in samples in differing exposure scenarios, i.e., spatial and temporal using African catfish (Heterobranchus bidorsalis) or water spinach (Ipomea aquatica). Significant spectral differences between tissues isolated from African catfish based on site or season were observed; in a region where fish appeared not to be present, water spinach was used as a surrogate sentinel organism. Using one-way ANOVA, the spectral categories were significant (P < 0.0001). The applicability of IR spectroscopy to detect subtle changes in target biological molecules within sentinel organisms along with its low-cost yet high-throughput potential suggests that biospectroscopy permits real-time evaluation of environmental exposure effects.

PTR-MS in Italy: a multipurpose sensor with applications in environmental, agri-food and health science.

Proton Transfer Reaction Mass Spectrometry (PTR-MS) has evolved in the last decade as a fast and high sensitivity sensor for the real-time monitoring of volatile compounds. Its applications range from environmental sciences to medical sciences, from food technology to bioprocess monitoring. Italian scientists and institutions participated from the very beginning in fundamental and applied research aiming at exploiting the potentialities of this technique and providing relevant methodological advances and new fundamental indications. In this review we describe this activity on the basis of the available literature. The Italian scientific community has been active mostly in food science and technology, plant physiology and environmental studies and also pioneered the applications of the recently released PTR-ToF-MS (Proton Transfer Reaction-Time of Flight-Mass Spectrometry) in food science and in plant physiology. In the very last years new results related to bioprocess monitoring and health science have been published as well. PTR-MS data analysis, particularly in the case of the ToF based version, and the application of advanced chemometrics and data mining are also aspects characterising the activity of the Italian community.

Integration of data systems and technology improves research and collaboration for a superfund research center.

Large collaborative centers are a common model for accomplishing integrated environmental health research. These centers often include various types of scientific domains (e.g., chemistry, biology, bioinformatics) that are integrated to solve some of the nation's key economic or public health concerns. The Superfund Research Center (SRP) at Oregon State University (OSU) is one such center established in 2008 to study the emerging health risks of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons while using new technologies both in the field and laboratory. With outside collaboration at remote institutions, success for the center as a whole depends on the ability to effectively integrate data across all research projects and support cores. Therefore, the OSU SRP center developed a system that integrates environmental monitoring data with analytical chemistry data and downstream bioinformatics and statistics to enable complete "source-to-outcome" data modeling and information management. This article describes the development of this integrated information management system that includes commercial software for operational laboratory management and sample management in addition to open-source custom-built software for bioinformatics and experimental data management.

Crowdsourcing, citizen sensing and sensor web technologies for public and environmental health surveillance and crisis management: trends, OGC standards and application examples.

'Wikification of GIS by the masses' is a phrase-term first coined by Kamel Boulos in 2005, two years earlier than Goodchild's term 'Volunteered Geographic Information'. Six years later (2005-2011), OpenStreetMap and Google Earth (GE) are now full-fledged, crowdsourced 'Wikipedias of the Earth' par excellence, with millions of users contributing their own layers to GE, attaching photos, videos, notes and even 3-D (three dimensional) models to locations in GE. From using Twitter in participatory sensing and bicycle-mounted sensors in pervasive environmental sensing, to creating a 100,000-sensor geo-mashup using Semantic Web technology, to the 3-D visualisation of indoor and outdoor surveillance data in real-time and the development of next-generation, collaborative natural user interfaces that will power the spatially-enabled public health and emergency situation rooms of the future, where sensor data and citizen reports can be triaged and acted upon in real-time by distributed teams of professionals, this paper offers a comprehensive state-of-the-art review of the overlapping domains of the Sensor Web, citizen sensing and 'human-in-the-loop sensing' in the era of the Mobile and Social Web, and the roles these domains can play in environmental and public health surveillance and crisis/disaster informatics. We provide an in-depth review of the key issues and trends in these areas, the challenges faced when reasoning and making decisions with real-time crowdsourced data (such as issues of information overload, "noise", misinformation, bias and trust), the core technologies and Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards involved (Sensor Web Enablement and Open GeoSMS), as well as a few outstanding project implementation examples from around the world.

Relative urban ecosystem health assessment: a method integrating comprehensive evaluation and detailed analysis.

Regarding the basic roles of urban ecosystem health assessment (i.e., discovering the comprehensive health status, and diagnosing the limiting factors of urban ecosystems), the general framework integrating comprehensive evaluation and detailed analysis is established, from both bottom-up and top-down directions. Emergy-based health indicators are established to reflect the urban ecosystem health status from a biophysical viewpoint. Considering the intrinsic uncertainty and relativity of urban ecosystem health, set pair analysis is combined with the emergy-based indicators to fill the general framework and evaluate the relative health level of urban ecosystems. These techniques are favorable for understanding the overall urban ecosystem health status and confirming the limiting factors of concerned urban ecosystems from biophysical perspective. Moreover, clustering analysis is applied by combining the health status with spatial geographical conditions. Choosing 26 typical Chinese cities in 2005, relative comprehensive urban ecosystem health levels were evaluated. The higher health levels of Xiamen, Qingdao, Shenzhen, and Zhuhai are in particular contrast to those of Wuhan, Beijing, Yinchuan, and Harbin, which are relatively poor. In addition, the conditions of each factor and related indicators are investigated through set pair analysis, from which the critical limiting factors of Beijing are confirmed. According to clustering analysis results, the urban ecosystems studied are divided into four groups. It is concluded that the proposed framework of urban ecosystem health assessment, which integrates comprehensive evaluation and detailed analysis and is fulfilled by emergy synthesis and set pair analysis, can serve as a useful tool to conduct diagnosis of urban ecosystem health.

Mapping health on the internet: a new tool for environmental justice and public health research.

This paper examines the prospects for integrating Internet platform GIS or 'web-GIS' into environmental justice and related public health research. Specifically, we document the development of a web-GIS created for investigating relationships between health, air quality and socioeconomic factors in Hamilton, Canada. After development of the web-GIS site, we assembled a focus group of public health professionals to test functionality and render opinions about the potential of the site and geographic information in their program implementation. Results show overwhelming support for the further integration of GIS into public health practice. The results also underscore the potential of web-GIS to alleviate concerns of cost and data availability that often limit the use of GIS in community debates centred on environmental justice issues.