• Asian Journal of Atmospheric Environment
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• 제11권2호
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• pp.61-70
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• 2017

This study evaluated the human health risk in terms of the excess number of mortality and morbidity in the megacity Mumbai, India due to air pollution. AirQ software was used to enumerate the various health impacts of critical pollutants in Mumbai in past 22 years during 1992-2013. A relationship concept based on concentration-response relative risk and population attributable-risk proportion was employed by adopting World Health Organization (WHO) guideline for concentrations of air pollutants like $PM_{10}$, $SO_2$ and $NO_2$. For the year 1992 in Mumbai, it was observed that excess number of cases of total mortality, cardiovascular mortality, respiratory mortality, hospital admission due to COPD, respiratory disease and cardiovascular disease were 8420, 4914, 889, 149, 10568 and 4081 respectively. However, after 22 years these figures increased to 15872, 9962, 1628, 580, 20527 and 7905 respectively, but all of these reached maximum in the year 2006. From the result, it is also noted that except COPD morbidity the excess number of cases from 1992-2002 to 2003-2013 increased almost by 30%; and the excess number of mortality and morbidity is basically due to particulate matter ($PM_{10}$) than due to gaseous pollutants.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• 제57권2호
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• pp.120-127
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• 2024

Objectives: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic led to increased mortality rates. To assess this impact, this ecological study aimed to estimate the excess death counts in southern Iran. Methods: The study obtained weekly death counts by linking the National Death Registry and Medical Care Monitoring Center repositories. The P-score was initially estimated using a simple method that involved calculating the difference between the observed and expected death counts. The interrupted time series analysis was then used to calculate the mean relative risk (RR) of death during the first year of the pandemic. Results: Our study found that there were 5571 excess deaths from all causes (P-score=33.29%) during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, with 48.03% of these deaths directly related to COVID-19. The pandemic was found to increase the risk of death from all causes (RR, 1.26; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.19 to 1.33), as well as in specific age groups such as those aged 35-49 (RR, 1.21; 95% CI, 1.12 to 1.32), 50-64 (RR, 1.38; 95% CI, 1.28 to 1.49), and ≥65 (RR, 1.29; 95% CI, 1.12 to 1.32) years old. Furthermore, there was an increased risk of death from cardiovascular diseases (RR, 1.17; 95% CI, 1.11 to 1.22). Conclusions: There was a 26% increase in the death count in southern Iran during the COVID-19 pandemic. More than half of these excess deaths were not directly related to COVID-19, but rather other causes, with cardiovascular diseases being a major contributor.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• 제7권3호
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• pp.251-255
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• 2016

Background: Building demolition can lead to emission of dust into the environment. Exposure to silica dust may be considered as an important hazard in these sites. The objectives of this research were to determine the amount of workers' exposure to crystalline silica dust and assess the relative risk of silicosis and the excess lifetime risk of mortality from lung cancer in demolition workers. Methods: Four sites in the Tehran megacity region were selected. Silica dust was collected using the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health method 7601 and determined spectrophotometrically. The Mannetje et al and Rice et al models were chosen to examine the rate of silicosis-related mortality and the excess lifetime risk of mortality from lung cancer, respectively. Results: The amount of demolition workers' exposure was in the range of $0.085-0.185mg/m^3$. The range of relative risk of silicosis related mortality was increased from 1 in the workers with the lowest exposure level to 22.64/1,000 in the employees with high exposure level. The range of the excess lifetime risk of mortality from lung cancer was in the range of 32-60/1,000 exposed workers. Conclusion: Geometric and arithmetic mean of exposure was higher than threshold limit value for silica dust in all demolition sites. The risk of silicosis mortality for many demolition workers was higher than 1/1,000 (unacceptable level of risk). Estimating the lifetime lung cancer mortality showed a higher risk of mortality from lung cancer in building demolition workers.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• 제12권2호
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• pp.174-183
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• 2021

Background: Toluene diisocyanate (TDI) is a highly reactive chemical that causes sensitization and has also been associated with increased lung cancer. A risk assessment was conducted based on occupational epidemiologic estimates for several health outcomes. Methods: Exposure and outcome details were extracted from published studies and a NIOSH Health Hazard Evaluation for new onset asthma, pulmonary function measurements, symptom prevalence, and mortality from lung cancer and respiratory disease. Summary exposure-response estimates were calculated taking into account relative precision and possible survivor selection effects. Attributable incidence of sensitization was estimated as were annual proportional losses of pulmonary function. Excess lifetime risks and benchmark doses were calculated. Results: Respiratory outcomes exhibited strong survivor bias. Asthma/sensitization exposure response decreased with increasing facility-average TDI air concentration as did TDI-associated pulmonary impairment. In a mortality cohort where mean employment duration was less than 1 year, survivor bias pre-empted estimation of lung cancer and respiratory disease exposure response. Conclusion: Controlling for survivor bias and assuming a linear dose-response with facility-average TDI concentrations, excess lifetime risks exceeding one per thousand occurred at about 2 ppt TDI for sensitization and respiratory impairment. Under alternate assumptions regarding stationary and cumulative effects, one per thousand excess risks were estimated at TDI concentrations of 10 - 30 ppt. The unexplained reported excess mortality from lung cancer and other lung diseases, if attributable to TDI or associated emissions, could represent a lifetime risk comparable to that of sensitization.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• 제24권3호
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• pp.131-142
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• 1999

통계청에서 최근에 발표한 한국인 인구통계 자료와 미국 학술원 산하 '방사선의 생물학적 영향 위원회'의 최근 보고서(BEIR-V)의 수정 상대위험 투사모델을 적용하여 한국인의 방사선 피폭에 의한 초과 암발생 위험도를 평가하였다. 인구통계 자료로부터 유도한 사소위험도(trivial risk) 및 계산된 방사선유발 초과 암 위험도를 비교한 후 사소위험도의 수준으로 개인의 피폭선량을 유지하기 위한 국내 원전의 안전운영 목표치를 유도하였다. 방사선 피폭 유발 초과 암 위험도는 0.1 Gy의 단일피폭의 경우에는 $5.5{\times}10^{-3}$, 1.0 mGy/y로 생애연속 피폭 시엔 $3.7{\times}10^{-3}$인 것으로 평가되었다. 한국인의 모든 원인에 의한 기저사망 위험도 및 사소위험도는 각각 $5.2{\times}10^{-3}$ 및 $5.2{\times}10^{-6}$인 것으로 예상되었다. 한국인의 사소위험도 및 방사선 위험도 평가 결과로부터 유도한 국내 원전운영의 안전목표치는 대략 0.05 mSv/y로, 이 값은 미국 원자력규제위원회(USNRC)가 연방규제법 10CFR50 부록 I에서 제시하고 있는 ALARA 지침값과 거의 동일한 값으로 밝혀졌다.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• 제46권3호
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• pp.83-97
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• 2021

Background: The lifetime risk of lung cancer incidence due to radiation for nonsmokers is overestimated because of the use of the average cancer baseline risk among a mixed population, including smokers. In recent years, the generalized multiplicative (GM)-excess relative risk (ERR) model has been developed in the life span study of atomic bomb survivors to consider the joint effect of radiation and smoking. Based on this background, this paper discusses the issues of radiation risk assessment considering smoking in two parts. Materials and Methods: In Part 1, we proposed a simple method of estimating the baseline risk for nonsmokers using current smoking data. We performed sensitivity analysis on baseline risk estimation to discuss the birth cohort effects. In Part 2, we applied the GM-ERR model for Japanese smokers to calculate lifetime attributable risk (LAR). We also performed a sensitivity analysis using other ERR models (e.g., simple additive (SA)-ERR model). Results and Discussion: In Part 1, the lifetime baseline risk from mixed population including smokers to nonsmokers decreased by 54% (44%-60%) for males and 24% (18%-29%) for females. In Part 2, comparison of LAR between SA- and GM-ERR models showed that if the radiation dose was ≤200 mGy or less, the difference between these ERR models was within the standard deviation of LAR due to the uncertainty of smoking information. Conclusion: The use of mixed population for baseline risk assessment overestimates the risk for lung cancer due to low-dose radiation exposure in Japanese males.

• Communications for Statistical Applications and Methods
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• 제29권3호
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• pp.287-299
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• 2022

In radiation epidemiology, the excess relative risk (ERR) model is used to determine the dose-response relationship. In general, the dose-response relationship for the ERR model is assumed to be linear, linear-quadratic, linear-threshold, quadratic, and so on. However, since none of these functions dominate other functions for expressing the dose-response relationship, a Bayesian semiparametric method using splines has recently been proposed. Thus, we improve the Bayesian semiparametric method for the selection of the tuning parameters for splines as the number and location of knots using a Bayesian knot selection method. Equally spaced knots cannot capture the characteristic of radiation exposed dose distribution which is highly skewed in general. Therefore, we propose a nonparametric Bayesian knot selection method based on a Dirichlet process mixture model. Inference of the spline coefficients after obtaining the number and location of knots is performed in the Bayesian framework. We apply this approach to the life span study cohort data from the radiation effects research foundation in Japan, and the results illustrate that the proposed method provides competitive curve estimates for the dose-response curve and relatively stable credible intervals for the curve.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• 제17권1호
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• pp.57-70
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• 1992

실내 라돈-222 자핵종의 농도에 피폭되므로서 유발될 수 있는 한국인의 초과 폐암위험을 방사선피폭의 확율론적 위험예측 모형을 이용하여 정량적으로 평가하였다. 1989년 기준 표준 생명표와 사망원인 통계연보 자료로부터 유도한 한국인의 폐암 사망률은 남, 여별로 각각 $22.4/10^5-$년 및 $9.5^/10^5-$년으로 추정 되었다. 이 폐암 사망율을 근거로 수학적으로 예상한 한 모든 사망원인하의 기저 폐암사망위험은 남, 여별로 각각 0.047(4.7%) 및 0.019(1.9%)로 1984년도 미국의 0.067(6.7%) 및 0.025(2.5%)보다 낮았다. 방사선 피폭의 확률론적 수정 상대위험 예측모형을 사용하여 예상한 한국인의 라돈자핵종 피폭당의 초과 폐암위험 계수는 남자 : 0.022/WLM, 여자 : 0.009/WLM 및 평균 : 0.017/WLM로 나타났으며 이로부터 추정한 한국인의 평균 수명중 라돈자핵종 피폭유발 초과 폐암의 사망빈도는 $230/10^6$인-WLM으로 최근 외국의 관련연구에서 보고한 $120{\sim}450/10^6-WLM$의 거의 중간치(median)정도에 해당하는 것으로 평가되었다.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• 제17권2호
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• pp.581-598
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• 2006

In many epidemiological and medical studies, a number of cancer mortalities in categorical classification may be considered as having Poisson distribution with person-years at risk depending upon time. The cancer mortalities have been evaluated by additive or multiplicative models with regard to background and excess risks based on several covariances such as sex, age at the time of bombings, time at exposure, or ionizing radiation, cigarette smoking habits, duration of smoking habits, etc. An interest herein is to examine an additive, synergistic, or antagonistic relationship between radiation exposures and cigarette smoking habits for cancer mortalities. The results revealed a highly significant antagonistic in uence for cancer mortalities from all non-hematologic findings, lung and respiratory system with negative interaction between radiation exposures and cigarette smoking amounts.

• 한국대기환경학회지
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• 제12권3호
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• pp.269-278
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• 1996

Airborne suspended particulates were collected by an Andersen high volume air sampler in a traffic area of Seoul from September 1990 to August 1991. Origanic matter extracted from particulates, their fractions, namely acidic, basic, neutral and carcinogenic subfractions (PAHs, nitroarenes) in neutral fractions were assayed for mutagenicity on TA98, TA100 and TA98NR deficient Salmonella strains, use of the pre-incubation method. The relative contribution to total mutanenicity of organic matters was highest in neutral fraction and was lowest in basic fraction. Among subfractions, that of neutral fraction was higher nitroarenes subfraction compared to PAHs subfraction. While the carcinogenic effect of benzo[a]pyrene was calculated as 0.96 persons/million persons based on unit risk estimates by extrapolation method, life time excess cancer risk estimate of EOM, neutral, PAH fraction based on their mutagenicity was calculated as 52, 42, 3.8 persons/million persons, respectively. These findings indicate that the mutagenic hazard of the partciculate, air organic complex mixture, may be dependent upon the mutagen composition in the particulate and interactions each of them. Therfore, health risk from air organic complex mixtures based on mutagenicity might be useful indicator for evaluation of actual risk.