Small targeted dietary changes can yield substantial gains for human health and the environment.

To identify environmentally sustainable foods that promote health, we combined nutritional health-based and 18 environmental indicators to evaluate, classify and prioritize individual foods. Specifically for nutrition, we developed the Health Nutritional Index to quantify marginal health effects in minutes of healthy life gained or lost of 5,853 foods in the US diet, ranging from 74 min lost to 80 min gained per serving. Environmental impacts showed large variations and were found to be correlated with global warming, except those related to water use.

Heat-related mortality under climate change and the impact of adaptation through air conditioning: A case study from Thessaloniki, Greece.

Climate change is expected to increase heat-related mortality across the world. Health Impact Assessment (HIA) studies are used to quantify the impact of higher temperatures, taking into account the effect of population adaptation. Although air-conditioning (AC) is one of the main drivers of technological adaptation to heat, the health impacts associated with AC-induced air pollution have not been examined in detail.

A Systems Examination of Food Packaging and Other Single-Use Item Waste in School Nutrition Programs.

Objective: Identify types of food packaging used in school nutrition programs and competing priorities, barriers, and facilitators for sustainable packaging waste use and recovery.

Design: Qualitative interviews (n = 20) and structured kitchen observations were conducted.

Setting: Data were collected from 3 school districts in Northern Colorado.

Towards Win-Win Policies for Healthy and Sustainable Diets in Switzerland.

The first Swiss national dietary survey (MenuCH) was used to screen disease burdens and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) of Swiss diets (vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, slimming), with a focus on gender and education level. The Health Nutritional Index (HENI), a novel disease burden-based nutritional index built on the Global Burden of Disease studies, was used to indicate healthiness using comparable, relative disease burden scores. Low whole grain consumption and high processed meat consumption are priority risk factors.

Human Health Benefits from Fish Consumption vs. Risks from Inhalation Exposures Associated with Contaminated Sediment Remediation: Dredging of the Hudson River.

Background: Billions of dollars are spent on environmental dredging (ED) to remediate contaminated sediments, with one goal being reduced human health risks. However, ED may increase health risks in unanticipated ways, thus potentially reducing net benefits.

Objectives: To assess the ways that ED may increase health risks in unanticipated ways, thus potentially reducing net benefits, we quantitatively assessed a subset of population health benefits and risks of ED, using the 2009-2015 remediation of the Hudson River Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) Superfund Site as a case study.

Global Effect Factors for Exposure to Fine Particulate Matter.

We evaluate fine particulate matter (PM) exposure-response models to propose a consistent set of global effect factors for product and policy assessments across spatial scales and across urban and rural environments. Relationships among exposure concentrations and PM-attributable health effects largely depend on location, population density, and mortality rates. Existing effect factors build mostly on an essentially linear exposure-response function with coefficients from the American Cancer Society study.

Calculating Intake of Dietary Risk Components Used in the Global Burden of Disease Studies from the What We Eat in America/National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys.

Disability adjusted life years (DALYs) is a health burden metric that combines years of life lost due to disease disability and premature mortality. The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) has been using DALYs to determine the health burden associated with numerous health risks, including risks associated with dietary intakes, at the global and national level. To translate such information at the food level in the U.

Assessing rear-end crash potential in urban locations based on vehicle-by-vehicle interactions, geometric characteristics and operational conditions.

Rear-end crashes are one of the most frequently occurring crash types, especially in urban networks. An understanding of the contributing factors and their significant association with rear-end crashes is of practical importance and will help in the development of effective countermeasures. The objective of this study is to assess rear-end crash potential at a microscopic level in an urban environment, by investigating vehicle-by-vehicle interactions.

Characterizing Aggregated Exposure to Primary Particulate Matter: Recommended Intake Fractions for Indoor and Outdoor Sources.

Exposure to fine particulate matter (PM) from indoor and outdoor sources is a leading environmental contributor to global disease burden. In response, we established under the auspices of the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative a coupled indoor-outdoor emission-to-exposure framework to provide a set of consistent primary PM aggregated exposure factors. We followed a matrix-based mass balance approach for quantifying exposure from indoor and ground-level urban and rural outdoor sources using an effective indoor-outdoor population intake fraction and a system of archetypes to represent different levels of spatial detail.