Health-related quality of life 1 year after a large-scale industrial fire among exposed inhabitants of Rouen, France: 'The Post Fire 76 Health' study.

Background: A large-scale industrial fire occurred in Rouen, France, in 2019. This study assessed the health-related quality of life of people exposed to its consequences 1 year later.

Methods: The study population comprised inhabitants of the exposed area and a non-exposed area.

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Santé publique France has been developing participatory approaches in the field of local environmental health investigations for around twenty years. An initial assessment of this activity was carried out in 2016. Comparing four types of participatory process implemented on different polluted sites, this work aims to reflect on the contributions and limits of such approaches.

[Horizon scanning in preparation for future health threats: a pilot exercise conducted by the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance in 2014].

Background: Health surveillance is a reactive process, with no real hindsight for dealing with signals and alerts. It may fail to detect more radical changes with a major medium-term or long-term impact on public health. To increase proactivity, the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance has opted for a prospective monitoring approach.

Voluntary Health Registry of French Nationals after the Great East Japan Earthquake, Tsunami, and Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident: Methods, Results, Implications, and Feedback.

Unlabelled: Introduction The 11th of March 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck alongside the north-east coast of Honshu Island, Japan, causing a tsunami and a major nuclear accident. The French Institute for Public Health Surveillance (InVS) set up, within one week after the triple catastrophe, an Internet-based registry for French nationals who were in Japan at the time of the disasters.

The French approach to deriving toxicity reference values: an example using reprotoxic effects.

Following the French health and environment action plan, the French Agency for Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety set up a workgroup to standardise a method of deriving toxicity reference values (TRVs). Over the last few decades, there has been increasing concern about the effect of exposure to chemicals on reproductive function, leading the group to take an interest in reprotoxic effects. This article presents the recommendations of the workgroup regarding specific reprotoxic effects.

Risk of cancer in the vicinity of municipal solid waste incinerators: importance of using a flexible modelling strategy.

Background: We conducted an ecological study in four French administrative departments and highlighted an excess risk in cancer morbidity for residents around municipal solid waste incinerators. The aim of this paper is to show how important are advanced tools and statistical techniques to better assess weak associations between the risk of cancer and past environmental exposures.

Methods: The steps to evaluate the association between the risk of cancer and the exposure to incinerators, from the assessment of exposure to the definition of the confounding variables and the statistical analysis carried out are detailed and discussed.

Risk for non Hodgkin's lymphoma in the vicinity of French municipal solid waste incinerators.

Background: Dioxin emissions from municipal solid waste incinerators are one of the major sources of dioxins and therefore are an exposure source of public concern. There is growing epidemiologic evidence of an increased risk for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) in the vicinity of some municipal solid waste incinerators with high dioxin emission levels. The purpose of this study was to examine this association on a larger population scale.

France's heat health watch warning system.

In 2003, a Heat Health Watch Warning System was developed in France to anticipate heat waves that may result in a large excess of mortality. The system was developed on the basis of a retrospective analysis of mortality and meteorological data in fourteen pilot cities. Several meteorological indicators were tested in relation to levels of excess mortality.

Validation of multimedia models assessing exposure to PAHs--the SOLEX study.

Polluted soils have become a public health problem. While population exposure to soil pollutants is generally quantified using multimedia models, their estimations have not been validated, and studies that attempted to do so are scarce. The objective of the SOLEX study was to compare the predictions of pyrene exposure levels (converted into 1 hydroxypyrene) computed by several models with the results of urinary 1-hydropyrene (1-HOP) assays among 110 employees working at three sites polluted during their past use as manufactured gas plants.

Soil-to-root transfer and translocation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by vegetables grown on industrial contaminated soils.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are possible contaminants in some former industrial sites, representing a potential risk to human health if these sites are converted to residential areas. This work was conducted to determine whether PAHs present in contaminated soils are transferred to edible parts of selected vegetables. Soils were sampled from a former gasworks and a private garden, exhibiting a range of PAH concentrations (4 to 53 to 172 to 1263 and 2526 mg PAHs kg-1 of dry soil), and pot experiments were conducted in a greenhouse with lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.