Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health Commons^™

The Evergreen Challenges Of Healing: An Evaluation Of Urban Green Space In Harambee, Kacee Ochalek

Theses and Dissertations

Urban green space initiatives have emerged in low- and middle-income cities as a solution to disinvestment, the production of more positive public health metrics, and a tool of community engagement. While the production of urban greening provides ample room for applause, The City of Milwaukee’s Healing Spaces Initiative model regarding the ongoing construction of green space and the implementation of maintenance creates challenges that perpetuate racist capitalistic notions of the neoliberal project. This paper presents reports from participant observation, document analysis, and 17 qualitative interviews with representatives of the City of Milwaukee, community partners, garden leaders, and residents. The data …

Towards Environmental Sustainability Of Nanotechnology Through Improved Evaluations Of Impact And Risk To Aquatic Species: Cross-Species Comparisons From The Laboratory And Environmentally Realistic Exposure Scenarios In The Field, Becky J. Curtis

Theses and Dissertations

Engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) are utilized in a wide variety of applications and products, including everything from toothpaste and personal care products to industries such as aerospace, defense, medicine, electronics, and agriculture. Depending on the application, release of ENMs to the environment may occur through both unintentional and deliberate routes. High surface-area-to-volume ratios make ENMs more volatile than bulk counterparts, and their small size allows translocation within biological systems that would not be possible with larger materials. These and other characteristics make ENM-biological system interactions unpredictable, creating uncertainty about their potential risks to environmental health. The purpose of this research is …

Functional Characterization Of Lt-Hsc Metabolic Activity Dependent On Ahr Activity, Everett Tate

Theses and Dissertations

The cells of the immune system are descended from multipotent hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) that emerge during development. Multipotency means that a single progenitor HSC can differentiate into any cell of the immune system. HSCs are required to do this for the lifetime of the organism through a process called self-renewal, and as such, any perturbation during development or in the bone marrow can have a trickle-down effect, affecting the self-renewal capacity or ability to terminally differentiate. The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) is a known regulator of HSCs. The AHR is a transcription factor required for the detoxification of numerous …

The Unintended Benefits Of Dams Should Be Considered Prior To Removal, Jacob Lloyd Jozefowski

Theses and Dissertations

Dams provide multiple benefits; however, they also degrade rivers. Many dams no longer serve their intended purpose and are nearing the end of their operational lives. The aging of dams coupled with the cost of restoration and maintenance, regulation, and the ecologic impacts of dams has resulted in removal becoming a viable management alternative. Despite increased utilization, limited research and a lack of quantitative predictive capacity results in large amounts of uncertainty associated with impacts of dam removal. Additionally, dams which no longer serve their intended purpose may still have unintended positive benefits such as the prevention of the spread …

Association Of Childhood Blood Lead Levels With Firearm Violence Perpetration And Victimization, Lindsay Rae Emer

Theses and Dissertations

Over 10,000 Americans are killed in firearm homicides each year, and an additional 40,000 are injured in nonfatal shootings. There is a significant public health need to identify risk factors that can be modified to prevent firearm violence. Environmental lead exposure is a demonstrated neurotoxicant which causes behavior changes that are known to be criminogenic. More recent research has demonstrated that homicides and nonfatal shootings differ by the circumstances that lead to the shootings (i.e. gang, domestic violence, arguments) and aggregating them could lead to biased results. Although studies have found a relationship between childhood lead exposure and criminal behaviors, …

Cyanobacteria And Cyanotoxin Ecology In Lakes And Drinking Water, Chelsea Weirich

Theses and Dissertations

Freshwater harmful algal blooms (FHABs) present a threat to ecological and public health in inland lakes. Problems associated with FHABs include human and animal illness, production of taste and odor compounds, and declining water quality and property values. Despite increased awareness and research on FHABs in recent decades, questions remain regarding long-term growth and diversity of FHABs in lakes that have taken measures toward slowing or reversing eutrophication, environmental factors impacting toxin occurrence, the most appropriate toxin analysis methods for protecting public health, and evidence for cyanotoxins detected in finished drinking water as a connection to exposure for potentially causing …

Iodine-131: Measurement And Application Of A Novel Tracer In Lake Michigan, Michael Patrick Montenero

Theses and Dissertations

Iodine-131 is a short-lived (half-life=8.0233 days), gamma emitting, radiopharmaceutical that, when excreted by patients, enters aquatic systems via sewage effluent discharged from water reclamation facilities (WRFs). Here, I report on 131I activities in the nearshore of southwest Lake Michigan in the vicinity of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This is the first report on 131I activity in any of the Great Lakes of North America.

The flux of 131I from Milwaukee’s two WRFs was monitored from July 2013 to December 2014. Mean discharge of 131I from the Jones Island WRF was (0.664 ± 0.012)×108 Bq d-1 (mean effluent 131I activity: ~0.25 Bq L-1; …

The Identification And Quantification Of Sewage Contamination In The Milwaukee Estuary, Hayley Templar

Theses and Dissertations

Sewage contamination from failing infrastructure and sewer overflows is a major environmental and human health concern in waterways, especially in urban communities bordering the Great Lakes such as Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Culture-based fecal indicator bacteria, such as Escherichia coli, enterococci, and fecal coliforms are traditionally used to indicate the presence of a human health risk due to fecal contamination. These indicators, however, fail to distinguish between sources of fecal contamination (human vs. non-human). Two human-specific fecal indicators, human Bacteroides and human Lachnospiraceae, were used to identify and quantify sewage contamination in the Milwaukee estuary, which discharges to Lake Michigan, as well …

Impact Of Gestational Exposure To 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-P-Dioxin On T Lymphocyte Development, Lori S. Ahrenhoerster

Theses and Dissertations

2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) is a ubiquitous environmental contaminant and the best characterized agonist of the arylhydrocarbon receptor (AHR), a transcription factor crucial to the detoxification of numerous xenobiotics. Studies in animals show that TCDD is immunosuppressive in adult exposures, and epidemiological studies have found an association between TCDD exposure and hematologic cancers. Additionally, developmental exposure to TCDD has been shown to increase the likelihood of autoimmunity and to impair immune response to later-life infections. The cells of the immune system are all descended from multipotent hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) that originate in the fetus. This multipotency, defined as the ability to …

Carbon Nanomaterials In Freshwater Ecosystems: An Chronic, Multi-Generational, And Genomic Assessment Of Toxicity To Daphnia Magna, Devrah Anne Arndt

Theses and Dissertations

Carbon nanomaterials are synthesized with a variety of core structures and surface chemistries to make them more biocompatible for application in different industries, but variation in core structure and functionalization can change the toxicity of carbon nanomaterials to organisms. In addition, current literature is dominated by data from acute toxicity assays, but meta-data is necessary to improve our understanding of nanomaterial toxicity. This project identifies specific core structures and surface chemistries that make carbon nanomaterials more and less toxic using chronic toxicity assays and multi-generational assays to generate a dataset on the sub-lethal impacts of nanomaterials to Daphnia magna. In …

The Influence Of Maternal Contexts On Infant Outcomes, Secondary Analysis Of Wpcr Data 2000-2010, Mary Roseanne Butler

Theses and Dissertations

Congenital heart defects (CHD) are the most prevalent birth defect in the world and occur in approximately 6-8 of every 1,000 live births (Hoffman & Kaplan, 2002). CHD continues to be one of the leading causes of infant morbidity and mortality today. Five to ten percent of all cases of CHD can be attributed to a chromosomal abnormality, 3%-5% are linked to single gene defects, and approximately 2% are a result of known environmental factors (Clark, 2001). With only 10%-15% of the causes of CHD are understood, the remaining 85%-90% of all CHD cases, the etiologies remain unknown. The purpose …

Effects Of Traffic And Air Pollution On Risk Of Preterm Birth And Low Birth Weight Outcomes In Milwaukee County, 2005-2010, Deborah Lynn Pasha James

Theses and Dissertations

Between 2005 and 2010, infants born to non-Hispanic black mothers experienced a 3-fold elevated risk of infant mortality compared to those born to white and Hispanic mothers. Preterm birth (PTB) and low birth weight (LBW) are strong predictors of infant mortality. To our knowledge, this is the first study of Wisconsin births to evaluate the effect of social and environmental factors on risk of PTB and LBW. We hypothesize that the observed racial inequalities in PTB and LBW are related to traffic density and air pollution. The Milwaukee INFANTS Study used 2005-2010 electronic birth record data (N = 85,045) geocoded …

Gene Expression Response In Early Developmental Stages Of Rainbow Trout Exposed To Ecologically Relevant Concentrations Of Malathion, Susan Miller

Theses and Dissertations

Understanding the early life stage toxic effects of environmental organophosphate exposure on organism health is crucial to identifying biomarkers that can be used for preventative care. Malathion, a potent organophosphate, is one of the most widely used organophosphates in agriculture and pest eradication. Due to its widespread use, pesticide runoff into area bodies of water poses a great threat to aquatic life and human inhabitants. Acute exposure to high concentrations of malathion causes neurological abnormalities and can result in respiratory failure, muscle spasms, and mental confusion in humans.

In the present study, the effects of malathion are observed following acute, …