Environmental impact assessment of sprayed-on asbestos in buildings

This study evaluated the environmental impacts of sprayed-on asbestos, which had been used as insulation material in buildings, from multiple perspectives, mainly at the disposal stage. The health risks from asbestos emission and energy consumption were estimated. Two disposal scenarios were assumed for the asbestos: melting for reduced-risk disposal and ordinary packaging/landfilling. We estimated the asbestos emission and health risk in the case of packaging/landfilling, assuming uncontrolled management of the landfill site. A difficulty with introducing health-risk concepts into life cycle assessment (LCA) is the pulse–flux problem, which is discussed in the light of these estimations. In order to solve this problem, we proposed a method using a conversion factor representing exposure-dose/emission, and showed that emission could be converted into health risk. We also estimated the energy consumption for melting asbestos in the disposal stage, which can decrease the health risk. If we consider the energy consumption for the life cycle of asbestos, only a little energy is required for melting, compared with the large amount of energy saved in the use stage owing to the insulating effect of the asbestos. The trade-off relationship between health risk and energy consumption for the disposal scenarios indicated the need for weighting methods to handle trade-offs such as this. Received: July 2, 1998 / Accepted: December 20, 1999     

大气中部分新污染物浓度特征、来源解析及健康风险评估

基于电迁移率颗粒物粒径数分布仪（SMPS）、气相色谱-质谱联用（GC-MS）、X-荧光（XRF）方法,于2022—2023年在南京市开展了部分大气新污染物的在线监测,并利用美国国家环境保护局（US EPA）健康风险评价模型评估其健康风险,进一步结合正定矩阵因子分解（PMF）模型对污染物及其健康风险进行来源解析。结果表明,南京市大气中新污染物浓度与其他地区报道的可比,且在遭遇污染过程时显著升高,锰元素的升幅最大（116.3%）。各类新污染物的健康风险均在安全阈值之内。PMF共分解出大气新污染物的5类来源,其中,超细颗粒物（UFPs）主要来自交通源（49%）、光化学（23%）和工业源（28%）;重金属主要来自工业源（74%）,而挥发性有机物（VOCs）则由工业源（52%）、交通源（25%）和燃烧源（13%）贡献。南京市大气新污染物的非致癌风险由工业源主导,而致癌风险则分别来自交通源、轮船源和工业源。     

浅谈儿童行为对电梯门区安全保护的影响

当儿童跟随大人乘坐电梯时,经常发生在电梯门区儿童受伤安全事故.本文介绍了儿童的好奇和探险行为、有限的认知能力以及有限的运动神经控制能力等天性行为,并通过对一些典型电梯事故案例中的儿童天性行为的分析,提出儿童的天性行为是导致这些电梯安全事故的根本原因,并指出儿童在乘坐针对成年人设计的电梯产品时存在的安全隐患,给电梯的设计...     

Environmental and public health co-benefits of consumer switches to immunity-supporting food

During COVID-19, there has been a surge in public interest for information on immunity-boosting foods. There is little scientific support for immunity-supporting properties of specific foods, but strong evidence for food choice impacts on other health outcomes (e.g. risk of non-communicable disease) and environmental sustainability. Here, we relate online recommendations for “immunity-boosting” foods across five continents to their environmental and human health impacts. More frequently recommended food items and groups are plant based and have lower land use and greenhouse gas emission impacts plus more positive health outcomes (reducing relative risks of mortality or chronic diet-related diseases) per serving of food. We identify trade-offs between environmental outcomes of increasing consumption of recommended food items, with aquatic environment impacts increasing with food recommendation frequency. People’s reliance on the Internet for health information creates an opportunity to consolidate behaviour change towards consuming foods with multiple co-benefits. Our study identifies win–win options for nudging online information-seeking behaviour towards more sustainable choices for terrestrial biodiversity conservation and human health.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13280-021-01693-w.     

地热水的开发利用对环境和健康的影响

在对我国地热水的分布,理化性状和利用现状调查的基础上,就地热水对环境和人群产生的影响进行了卫生学研究,结果表明地热点周围环境已受到了不同程度的污染,人群健康的远期影响也不容忽视。并提出了今后地热水开发中应重视的问题。     

大伙房水库多介质中全氟化合物赋存特征、源解析及健康风险评估

大伙房水库属于全国城市供水九大重点水源地之一,作为辽宁省重要的饮用水水源地,库区水质直接影响该区域人民饮水安全及身体健康。对大伙房水库表层水体、沉积物和鱼类样品中全氟化合物（PFAS）的赋存特征及可能的来源进行分析,并运用健康风险商值法评估PFAS的潜在健康风险。结果表明,库区表层水体中ρ（ΣPFAS）为1.18~8.19 ng/L,主要污染物为全氟辛酸及其盐类化合物（PFOA）和全氟戊基羧酸（PFPA）,其浓度水平随时间呈下降趋势;沉积物中只检出3种污染物,分别为PFOA、全氟十一烷基羧酸（PFUnA）和全氟十二烷基羧酸（PFDoDA）,ω（ΣPFAS）为0.16~0.48 ng/g;不同鱼类样品中ω（ΣPFAS）由高到低依次为：武昌鱼（2.49 ng/g）>鲤鱼（2.30 ng/g）>白鲢（2.02 ng/g）>花鲢（2.01 ng/g）,主要污染物均为PFPA。基于主成分分析与相关性分析可知,大伙房水库库区的PFAS主要来自采矿、电镀、涂料等工业污染废水和生活污水;健康风险评估结果表明,表层水体和鱼类样品中的PFAS不存在健康风险。     

Seeing,believing, and behaving: Heterogeneous effects of an information intervention on household water treatment

Providing information about environmental health risks only sometimes induces protective action. This raises questions about whether and how risk information is understood and acted upon, and how responses vary across contexts. To characterize such variation, we stratified a randomized experiment related to household water quality across two periurban areas in Cambodia. When we showed specific evidence of water contamination to lower-SES households who were initially more optimistic about water safety, they altered their beliefs about health risk and increased their demand for a treatment product. However, demand for the treatment product among higher and initially more pessimistic SES households did not change significantly. These findings highlight the importance of better understanding heterogeneity in the specific drivers of responses to health risk information.     

Building capacity through action research: reflections on working with low-carbon communities in the UK

This paper describes a four-year programme of “action research” (AR) undertaken with six communities in the UK, referred to as the Evaluating Low-Carbon Communities (EVALOC) project. The research combined a programme of research events with phased household-level monitoring of energy and carbon-reduction interventions. The carbon-reduction interventions were funded by the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change prior to the onset of the research. AR has recently been adopted within the context of environmental behaviour change programmes in the UK, with a number of methodological challenges. The EVALOC project’s challenges included developing a collaborative research design; building reciprocity between the researchers and research participants; dealing with biases and burdens in the research process; ensuring analytical rigour in the interpretation of the primarily qualitative evidence and dealing with the long-term and process-driven outcomes that arise from such interactions. This paper explores and discusses the challenges of AR in relation to selected research outcomes from EVALOC. We conclude by suggesting that the AR approach has helped to build capacity in the participating low-carbon communities (LCCs), through supporting the design, delivery and evaluation of their energy and carbon-reduction activities.     

Creating sense of community: The role of public space

A strong sense of community has been associated with improved wellbeing, increased feelings of safety and security, participation in community affairs and civic responsibility. Although interest in how the broader built environment influences sense of community is gaining momentum, there is a dearth of empirical research examining the association between sense of community and the quality of public space. This study investigates the relationship between four public spaces – Public Open Space (POS), community centres, schools and shops – and sense of community in residents of new housing developments in the Perth metropolitan area, Western Australia. Data was obtained from a cross-sectional survey (n = 911), a POS audit, and Geographical Information Systems, and analysed using linear regression. The perceived quality of neighbourhood POS and shops was significantly and positively associated with sense of community. This relationship appears to be unaffected by how frequently people use these spaces. High quality public spaces may be important settings for enhancing sense of community within residents of new housing developments.