Flemish human biomonitoring campaign

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Flemish human biomonitoring campaign Environmental
health Monitoring for action 2002-2006
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Outline of the presentation

• Goals of the study G. Schoeters VITO
• Study design L. Bruckers University of
  Hasselt
• Results E. Den Hond VITO
• Further perspectives G. Schoeters- VITO

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Flanders fields
Flanders EU
Inhabitants/km2 (98) 446 116
private cars/km2 (00) 205 52
km motorways/100 km2 (99) 472 108
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Goals

• Develop a surveillance program for environmental
  health ? policy support
• Identify base line values or reference values
  for environmental pollutants in the Flemish
  population
• Has the area of residence an impact on the
  internal pollutant levels and potential
  biological effects?
• Early signaling of environmental health risks ?

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The causal chain from exposure to effect
biomarkers of exposure
Environmental monitoring
biomarkers of effects
adverse health effects
air
polluant levels in
changes in
Asthma Fertility Cancer Death
dust
Growth Hormone levels DNAdamage Immunological
markers
Blood Urine Hair Saliva Exhaled breath
Consumer products
water
soil
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Choices to be made

• Pollutants ?
• Sampling areas ?
• Populations?
• Effect parameters?

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Selection of pollutants with well known health
effects

• POPs
• Dioxin like compounds
• PCB 138, 153,180
• Hexachlorobenzene (HCB)
• DDE (DDT metabolite)
• Heavy metals cadmium, lead
• Volatile organic compounds metabolites of
  benzene (tt muconic acid) and PAHs
  (1-hydroxypyrene)

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Study areas

• 8 study areas in Flanders with typical and
  different environmental load
• Conurbation of Antwerp
• Conurbation of Gent IRCEL environmental
  monitoring network
• Seaport of Antwerp and Gent
• Rural area population density lt250persons/km2,
  lt 5 industry, no
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  motorways, no data in emission
  register,
• Fruit Region applefruit gt 10 ha/km2
• Incinerators SS with smoke emission gt 1.20 mg
  /m3
• Olen (Non Ferro) SS with lead
  emission gt 0.9ng / m3 (gt Olen)
• Albertcanal (Petrochemica) SS
  with emision of a fictive pollutantsgt
  Eindhout

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The Netherlands
North Sea
Brussels
Representing 3.055 km² (22 of Flanders)
65 municipalities (21 of
Flanders) 1.186.165
inhabitants (20 of Flanders)
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Study areas
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Selection of population

• Flemish biomonitoring campaign
• 2002-2006
• 3 age groups

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Integration of two activities

• 2 Main types of HBM activities
• SURVEILLANCE produce information on the
  prevalence of exposure to environmental agents
  and the related public health impact with a view
  to developing and evaluating policies that
  protect health
• RESEARCH projects activities that aim at
  improvement of knowledge on causal links between
  environmental factors and health by hypothesis
  generation and testing

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Multidisciplinar team operating via a fieldwork
committee
coördination

• .

Biomonitoring
VITO PIH VUB UG KUL UH UA
fieldwork
toxicology
Foodintake
Health registers
Impact assessment
Statistical analysis
communication
http//www.milieu-en-gezondheid.be
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HBM a participatory processbased on transparency
and openess

• Approval by ethical and privacy commission
• Communication of individual results to the
  participants
• Communication of collective results to
  participants,
• policy makers, local authorities and large
  public
• Information network including MMKs
• BIOMONITOR newsletters
• Web site http//www.milieu-en-gezondheid.be