Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Environmentally Marginalized Populations: The "Perfect Storm" For Infectious Disease Pandemics, Including Covid-19, Gabriella Y. Meltzer, Oyemwenosa Avenbuan, Christina Awada, Oluwakemi B. Oyetade, Tricia Blackman, Simona Kwon Drph, Mph, Esther Erdei Phd, Judith T. Zelikoff Phd

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

COVID-19 has exacted a severe toll on the United States population’s physical and mental health and its effects have been felt most severely among people of color and low socioeconomic status. Using illustrative case studies, this commentary argues that in addition to COVID-19 health disparities created by psychosocial stressors such as the inability to socially distance and access quality healthcare, environmental justice communities have the additional burden of disproportionate exposure to toxic contaminants that contribute to their higher risk of COVID-19. Environmental contaminants including heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants found contaminating their nearby environments can alter the immune response, …

Emerging Themes In Food Security: Environmental Justice, Extended Families And The Multiple Roles Of Grandmothers., Ethel Alderete, Lauren Sonderegger, Eliseo J Pérez-Stable

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

BACKGROUND: Pre- and perinatal nutritional status defines the development of adult metabolism and energy balance in humans. Young children in poor households are disproportionately more vulnerable to food insecurity given the cumulative impact of chronic stress on susceptibility to chronic diseases as an adult. Qualitative studies focusing on the experience of food insecurity in Latin America are scarce. In Argentina, although socioeconomic indicators improved in the aftermath of the 2001ecomomic crisis, the disadvantaged provinces in the north continue to bear the burden of historical inequities. The study was conducted among Primary Health Care patients in the city of San Salvador …

Environmental Justice And Community-Based Participatory Research In Texas Borderland Colonias, Adelita G. Cantu, Margaret A. Graham, Ann V. Millard, Isidore Flores, Meaghan K. Mugleston, Iris Y. Reyes, Ester C. Carbajal

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objective

An innovative academic-community partnership studied daily decisions in communities of mostly Spanish-speaking, low-income residents of colonias in Hidalgo County, TX, about risk of exposure to fish contaminated by PCBs at an Environment Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund site.

Design and Sample

The team used focus group interviews with colonia residents and content analysis to assess knowledge of risk related to the Superfund site, the Donna Reservoir and Canal System.

Results

(1) many lacked knowledge of the Superfund site contamination; (2) a few participants fished at the lake, knew people who did so, and consumed the catch, but most participants feared …

Investigating The Effect Of Arsenic On Chromium(Vi)-Induced Genotoxicity In Human Lung Fibroblasts, Jason Stewart Ms

All Student Scholarship

Hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)) compounds are well-established human lung carcinogens. Arsenic (As) is a well documented human carcinogen with long term exposure to AS in drinking water being linked to lung, kidney and liver cancer, among others. Co-exposure studies are now becoming more common as humans are not exposed to just one toxicant at a time. This is the first study to investigate the effects of co-exposure with arsenic and soluble or particulate Cr(Vi) compounds in human lung fibroblasts.

Ecotoxicological Investigations Of Pharmaceutical Compounds On A Battery Of Freshwater Test Species., Elaine Minagh

Masters

Currently interest in pharmaceuticals as potential environmental contaminants has increases significantly. This is due to the awareness of the possible adverse effects to human health and the environment caused by such contaminants. Within the past few years, the highly prescribed antidepressants, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI), have received attention as their occurrence in the environment has been recently documented. Prior to this, there was very little known about the ecotoxicity of SSRIs, and in particular sertraline hydrochloride. Similarly the cholesterol-lowering drugs, known as statins are among the most frequently prescribed agents in Ireland and worldwide for the treatment of coronary …

Effect Of Glove Port Height On Upper Body Stress For Performing Laboratory Work, Jason Mark Williams

Theses

Glove boxes are used in many industries to constrain environmental contamination and protect the worker from harmful or hazardous exposures. This research specifically evaluates the effect of height of the glove box arm ports on the efficiency of task performance and physiological costs of work for the glove box users.

Seven male and two female participants performed liquid mixing and vial filling tasks within a portable glove box. The tasks were designed to simulate common glove box tasks performed in pharmaceutical and laboratory settings. Each participant repeated the designed tasks while the glove port height was set at two different …