Environmental Public Health Commons^™

Colonizing Opportunistic Pathogens (Cops): The Beasts In All Of Us., Lance B Price, Bruce A Hungate, Benjamin J Koch, Gregg S Davis, Cindy M Liu

Environmental and Occupational Health Faculty Publications

Colonizing opportunistic pathogens (COPs) are microbes that asymptomatically colonize the human body and, when the conditions are right, can cause infections. Their ability to persist indefinitely and to be transmitted without detection [1] gives COPs a unique epidemiology that warrants special consideration. There are examples of COPs among bacteria, fungi (e.g., Candida albicans [2]), protozoa (e.g., Blastocystis [3, 4]), and viruses (e.g., Rhinovirus [5]), but bacterial COPs are of particular relevance because of their major contribution to today’s antibiotic resistance crisis. The COPs include a long list of notorious bacteria that …

Colonizing Opportunistic Pathogens (Cops): The Beasts In All Of Us., Lance B Price, Bruce A Hungate, Benjamin J Koch, Gregg S Davis, Cindy M Liu

Environmental and Occupational Health Faculty Publications

Colonizing opportunistic pathogens (COPs) are microbes that asymptomatically colonize the human body and, when the conditions are right, can cause infections. Their ability to persist indefinitely and to be transmitted without detection [1] gives COPs a unique epidemiology that warrants special consideration. There are examples of COPs among bacteria, fungi (e.g., Candida albicans [2]), protozoa (e.g., Blastocystis [3, 4]), and viruses (e.g., Rhinovirus [5]), but bacterial COPs are of particular relevance because of their major contribution to today’s antibiotic resistance crisis. The COPs include a long list of notorious bacteria that …

The Imperial County Community Air Monitoring Network: A Model For Community-Based Environmental Monitoring For Public Health Action., Paul B English, Luis Olmedo, Ester Bejarano, Humberto Lugo, Eduardo Murillo, Edmund Seto, Michelle Wong, Galatea King, Alexa Wilkie, Dan Meltzer, Graeme Carvlin, Michael Jerrett, Amanda Northcross

Environmental and Occupational Health Faculty Publications

The Imperial County Community Air Monitoring Network (the Network) is a collaborative group of community, academic, nongovernmental, and government partners designed to fill the need for more detailed data on particulate matter in an area that often exceeds air quality standards. The Network employs a community-based environmental monitoring process in which the community and researchers have specific, well-defined roles as part of an equitable partnership that also includes shared decision-making to determine study direction, plan research protocols, and conduct project activities. The Network is currently producing real-time particulate matter data from 40 low-cost sensors throughout Imperial County, one of the …

Heat Exposure And Maternal Health In The Face Of Climate Change., Leeann Kuehn, Sabrina Mccormick

Environmental and Occupational Health Faculty Publications

Climate change will increasingly affect the health of vulnerable populations, including maternal and fetal health. This systematic review aims to identify recent literature that investigates increasing heat and extreme temperatures on pregnancy outcomes globally. We identify common research findings in order to create a comprehensive understanding of how immediate effects will be sustained in the next generation. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guide, we systematically reviewed articles from PubMed and Cochrane Reviews. We included articles that identify climate change-related exposures and adverse health effects for pregnant women. There is evidence that temperature extremes adversely …

Reducing Chemical Exposures At Home: Opportunities For Action., Ami R Zota, Veena Singla, Gary Adamkiewicz, Susanna D Mitro, Robin E Dodson

Environmental and Occupational Health Faculty Publications

Indoor environments can influence human environmental chemical exposures and, ultimately, public health. Furniture, electronics, personal care and cleaning products, floor coverings and other consumer products contain chemicals that can end up in the indoor air and settled dust. Consumer product chemicals such as phthalates, phenols, flame retardants and per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances are widely detected in the US general population, including vulnerable populations, and are associated with adverse health effects such as reproductive and endocrine toxicity. We discuss the implications of our recent meta-analysis describing the patterns of chemical exposures and the ubiquity of multiple chemicals in indoor environments. …

Penile Anaerobic Dysbiosis As A Risk Factor For Hiv Infection, Cindy Liu, Jessica Prodger, Aaron Tobian, Alison Abraham, Godfrey Kigozi, Lance B. Price, +Several Additional Authors

Environmental and Occupational Health Faculty Publications

Sexual transmission of HIV requires exposure to the virus and infection of activated mucosal immune cells, specifically CD4⁺ T cells or dendritic cells. The foreskin is a major site of viral entry in heterosexual transmission of HIV. Although the probability of acquiring HIV from a sexual encounter is low, the risk varies even after adjusting for known HIV risk factors. The genital microbiome may account for some of the variability in risk by interacting with the host immune system to trigger inflammatory responses that mediate the infection of mucosal immune cells. We conducted a case-control study of uncircumcised participants …

Emergence Of Livestock-Associated Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus Bloodstream Infections In Denmark., Jesper Larsen, Andreas Petersen, Anders R Larsen, Raphael N Sieber, Marc Stegger, Anders Koch, Frank M Aarestrup, Lance B Price, Robert L Skov

Environmental and Occupational Health Faculty Publications

Background

Livestock-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus clonal complex 398 (LA-MRSA CC398) is causing an increasing number of skin and soft tissue infections (SSTIs) in Denmark and other European countries with industrial pig production. Yet, its impact on MRSA bloodstream infections (BSIs) has not been well studied.

Methods

We investigated the clinical epidemiology of all human cases of LA-MRSA CC398 BSI during 2010–2015. Cases of LA-MRSA CC398 BSI were compared to cases of BSI caused by other types of MRSA and cases of SSTI caused by LA-MRSA CC398. Whole-genome sequence analysis was used to assess the phylogenetic relationship among LA-MRSA CC398 isolates …

Implementation Science To Accelerate Clean Cooking For Public Health., Joshua Rosenthal, Kalpana Balakrishnan, Nigel Bruce, David Chambers, Jay Graham, Darby Jack, Lydia Kline, Omar Masera, Sumi Mehta, Ilse Ruiz Mercado, Gila Neta, Subhrendu Pattanayak, Elisa Puzzolo, Helen Petach, Antonello Punturieri, Adolfo Rubinstein, Michael Sage, Rachel Sturke, Anita Shankar, Kenny Sherr, Kirk Smith, Gautam Yadama

Environmental and Occupational Health Faculty Publications

Clean cooking has emerged as a major concern for global health and development because of the enormous burden of disease caused by traditional cookstoves and fires. The World Health Organization has developed new indoor air quality guidelines that few homes will be able to achieve without replacing traditional methods with modern clean cooking technologies, including fuels and stoves. However, decades of experience with improved stove programs indicate that the challenge of modernizing cooking in impoverished communities includes a complex, multi-sectoral set of problems that require implementation research. The National Institutes of Health, in partnership with several government agencies and the …

Clinical And Mucosal Immune Correlates Of Hiv-1 Semen Levels In Antiretroviral-Naive Men., Brendan J W Osborne, Angie K Marsh, Sanja Huibner, Kamnoosh Shahabi, Cindy Liu, Tania Contente, Nico J D Nagelkerke, Colin Kovacs, Erika Benko, Lance Price, Kelly S Macdonald, Rupert Kaul

Environmental and Occupational Health Faculty Publications

Background.

This study was done to characterize parameters associated with semen human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1 ribonucleic acid (RNA) viral load (VL) variability in HIV-infected, therapy-naive men. Methods.

Paired blood and semen samples were collected from 30 HIV-infected, therapy-naive men who have sex with men, and 13 participants were observed longitudinally for up to 1 year. Human immunodeficiency virus RNA, bacterial load by 16S RNA, herpesvirus (Epstein-Barr virus and cytomegalovirus [CMV]) shedding, and semen cytokines/chemokines were quantified, and semen T-cell subsets were assessed by multiparameter flow cytometry. Results.

Semen HIV RNA was detected at 93% of visits, with >50% of men …