Su Ryeon Noh

Burden of disease attributable to the Hebei Spirit oil spill in Taean, Korea

Objectives We aimed to assess the burden of disease (BOD) of the residents living in contaminated coastal area with oil spill and also analysed the BOD attributable to the oil spill by disease, age, sex and subregion. Design Health impact assessment by measuring years lived with disability (YLD) due to an oil spill. Setting A whole population of a community affected by an anthropogenic environmental disaster and secondary health outcome data. Participants Based on the health outcome survey including 10 171 individuals (male 4354; female 5817), BOD of 66 473 populations (male 33 441; female 33 032) was measured. Interventions None. Observational study on the effect of a specific environmental health hazard. Primary and secondary outcome measures Using disability adjusted life year (DALY) method, BOD including physical and mental diseases was measured. For the BOD measurement, excess incidences of illnesses related to oil spill were estimated from the comparison of prevalence of the health outcomes between contaminated areas and reference area without contamination. Results YLD attributable to the oil spill were estimated to be 14 724 DALYs (male 7425 DALYs; female 7299 DALYs) for the year 2008. The YLD of mental diseases including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression for men were higher than that for women. The YLD for women was higher in asthma and allergies (rhinitis, dermatitis, conjunctivitis) than that for men. The effects of asthma and allergies were the greatest for people in their 40s, with the burden of mental illness being the greatest for those in their 20s. Proximity to the spill site was associated with increased BOD. Conclusions An oil spill near a coastline can cause substantial adverse health effects. As the health effects of hazardous pollutants from oil spills are long-lasting, close follow-up studies are required to identify chronic health effects.

Comparison of diverse estimation methods for personal exposure to air pollutants and associations with allergic symptoms: The Allergy & Gene-Environment Link (ANGEL) study

We estimated the exposure to ambient air pollutants and analyzed the associations with allergic diseases. We enrolled 177 children with atopic dermatitis (AD) and 70 asthmatic adults living in Seoul Metropolitan Area, Korea, and followed for 17months between August 2013 and December 2014. Parents or patients recorded symptom scores on a daily basis. Exposure to particulate matter with a diameter <10μm (PM10) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) was estimated in four different ways in each individual, using the AQ1 (measurements from the nearest air quality monitoring station to residential houses), AQ2 (measurements modified from AQ1 with the indoor level of air pollutants and time activity of each individual), AQ1-DI, and AQ2-DI (measurements modified from AQ1 and AQ2, respectively, with daily inhalation intakes of air pollutants). A generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) was used to analyze the associations between exposure metrics and clinical symptoms after adjusting for ambient temperature and humidity, age, season, gender, and time trend. The exposure metrics for PM10 and NO2 showed different distributions. Symptoms of AD and asthma were positively associated with exposure to PM10, but not NO2, in all exposure metrics. The effect size of PM10 exposure on asthma symptoms was slightly greater in metrics with inhalation capacity (AQ-DIs) than in those without (AQs). This pattern was not observed in AD. Exposure to PM10 is associated with symptom aggravation in childhood AD and adult asthma. Different exposure estimates may be used to evaluate the impact of air pollution on different allergic diseases.