2,701 results match your criteria: "Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences[Affiliation]"

Background: Several measures of occupational exposure to pesticides have been used to study associations between exposure to pesticides and neurobehavioral outcomes. This study assessed the impact of different exposure measures for glyphosate and mancozeb on the association with neurobehavioral outcomes based on original and recalled self-reported data with 246 smallholder farmers in Uganda.

Methods: The association between the 6 exposure measures and 6 selected neurobehavioral test scores was investigated using linear multivariable regression models.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Whole blood transcriptome in long-COVID patients reveals association with lung function and immune response.

J Allergy Clin Immunol

September 2024

Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Amsterdam UMC, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Amsterdam Institute for Infection and Immunity, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Amsterdam Public Health, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Department of Pediatric Respiratory Medicine, Emma Children's Hospital, Amsterdam UMC, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Background: Months after infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, at least 10% of patients still experience complaints. Long-COVID (coronavirus disease 2019) is a heterogeneous disease, and clustering efforts revealed multiple phenotypes on a clinical level. However, the molecular pathways underlying long-COVID phenotypes are still poorly understood.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The Exposome Project aims to explore how various occupational exposures affect health, focusing on noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) to set research priorities.
  • A narrative review was conducted to analyze occupational risk factors linked to six NCD groups, identifying over 200 exposures with varying levels of evidence regarding their health associations.
  • Key findings indicate that certain exposures like diesel engine exhaust have consistent links to lung cancer, while others require more research to better understand their impact on health.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: Headache is one of the most prevalent and disabling health conditions globally. We prospectively explored the urban exposome in relation to weekly occurrence of headache episodes using data from the Dutch population-based Occupational and Environmental Health Cohort Study (AMIGO).

Material And Methods: Participants (N = 7,339) completed baseline and follow-up questionnaires in 2011 and 2015, reporting headache frequency.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Hourly land-use regression modeling for NO and PM in the Netherlands.

Environ Res

September 2024

Division of Environmental Epidemiology, Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, Pobox 80125, 3508, TC Utrecht, the Netherlands.

Annual average land-use regression (LUR) models have been widely used to assess spatial patterns of air pollution exposures. However, they fail to capture diurnal variability in air pollution and consequently might result in biased dynamic exposure assessments. In this study we aimed to model average hourly concentrations for two major pollutants, NO and PM, for the Netherlands using the LUR algorithm.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

To study the ways in which compounds can induce adverse effects, toxicologists have been constructing Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOPs). An AOP can be considered as a pragmatic tool to capture and visualize mechanisms underlying different types of toxicity inflicted by any kind of stressor, and describes the interactions between key entities that lead to the adverse outcome on multiple biological levels of organization. The construction or optimization of an AOP is a labor intensive process, which currently depends on the manual search, collection, reviewing and synthesis of available scientific literature.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aviation has been shown to cause high particle number concentrations (PNC) in areas surrounding major airports. Particle size distribution and composition differ from motorized traffic. The objective was to study short-term effects of aviation-related UFP on respiratory health in children.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Risk factors for antimicrobial use in Dutch pig farms: A cross-sectional study.

Res Vet Sci

July 2024

Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands; National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Centre for Infectious Disease Control, Bilthoven, the Netherlands.

Background: Antimicrobial use (AMU) has decreased significantly in Dutch pig farms since 2009. However, this decrease has stagnated recently, with relatively high AMU levels persisting mainly among weaners. The aim of this study was to identify farm-level characteristics associated with: i) total AMU and ii) use of specific antimicrobial classes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Validation of mobile phone use recall in the multinational MOBI-kids study.

Bioelectromagnetics

October 2024

Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences (IRAS), Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Potential differential and non-differential recall error in mobile phone use (MPU) in the multinational MOBI-Kids case-control study were evaluated. We compared self-reported MPU with network operator billing record data up to 3 months, 1 year, and 2 years before the interview date from 702 subjects aged between 10 and 24 years in eight countries. Spearman rank correlations, Kappa coefficients and geometric mean ratios (GMRs) were used.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Organic dust is associated with hypersensitivity pneumonitis, and associations with other types of interstitial lung disease (ILD) have been suggested. We examined the association between occupational organic dust exposure and hypersensitivity pneumonitis and other ILDs in a cohort study.

Methods: The study population included all residents of Denmark born in 1956 or later with at least 1 year of gainful employment since 1976.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Estimating occupational disease burden: a way forward.

Ann Work Expo Health

August 2024

Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, 3584 CM Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Estimates of occupational disease burden provide important information on which effective policy and regulations can be developed. However, there is no direct way that these data can be obtained, and most burden estimates are derived by merging different data from diverse sources to synthesize estimates of the number of people made ill or who have died from workplace exposures. In recent years, several research groups have published estimates of occupational health burden at national or global scales; these are not always consistent.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The Cohort Study of Mobile Phone Use and Health (COSMOS) has repeatedly collected self-reported and operator-recorded data on mobile phone use. Assessing health effects using self-reported information is prone to measurement error, but operator data were available prospectively for only part of the study population and did not cover past mobile phone use. To optimize the available data and reduce bias, we evaluated different statistical approaches for constructing mobile phone exposure histories within COSMOS.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Early career members of the Epidemiology and Environment Assembly of the European Respiratory Society (ERS) presented insights from four key sessions at the ERS 2023 Congress, focusing on diverse topics related to respiratory health.
  • The discussions included the impact of micro- and macro-environments on respiratory conditions, occupational diseases affecting airways, tobacco research, and the management of multimorbidity in lung disease patients.
  • The findings emphasize the significance of environmental risk factors linked to respiratory issues, the rising concern over nicotine product usage, and their broader health implications associated with lung diseases.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - This study explored how exposure to high and low levels of air pollution from traffic (TRAP) affects metabolism and gene expression in 50 individuals, including those with chronic lung or heart conditions.
  • - Researchers used advanced techniques to analyze blood samples for metabolic and mRNA changes at different times around the exposure, identifying 78 metabolic and 53 mRNA features linked to TRAP, with nitrogen dioxide (NO) being the most significant pollutant.
  • - Findings showed that even short-term exposure to TRAP can disrupt physiological functions, particularly influencing gut-related metabolism, with effects that can persist for up to 24 hours after exposure.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the link between occupational exposure to benzene and the mortality risk of lymphohaematopoietic (LH) cancers, particularly acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and other lymphoid malignancies.
  • Researchers used a large cohort from Swiss census data, assessing benzene exposure through job-related factors and identifying cancer cases through death certificates.
  • Results showed increased mortality risks associated with benzene exposure, especially for AML and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, suggesting a significant health risk for workers exposed to benzene.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Early life ambient air pollution, household fuel use, and under-5 mortality in Ghana.

Environ Int

May 2024

Julius Global Health, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht University, The Netherlands; Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.

Introduction: Environmental exposures, such as ambient air pollution and household fuel use affect health and under-5 mortality (U5M) but there is a paucity of data in the Global South. This study examined early-life exposure to ambient particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 µm or less (PM), alongside household characteristics (including self-reported household fuel use), and their relationship with U5M in the Navrongo Health and Demographic Surveillance Site (HDSS) in northern Ghana.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Literacy about zoonoses can contribute people adapt their behaviour to minimize zoonotic risks. In this study, associations between sociodemographic factors and zoonotic risk-averse attitudes were explored.

Objective: To determine factors significantly associated with literacy about zoonoses across sociodemographic groups to inform targeted interventions aiming at improving awareness and zoonotic risk-avoidance behaviours.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates how health behaviors like smoking, physical inactivity, and alcohol use may mediate the relationship between depression, anxiety, and different types of cancer, including lung and breast cancer.
  • Utilizing data from 18 cohorts with a total of 319,613 participants, the researchers performed two-stage meta-analyses to analyze these associations and calculate the mediating effects.
  • Results showed that smoking and physical inactivity significantly mediated links between depression, anxiety, and lung cancer, highlighting the importance of smoking cessation programs for individuals dealing with mental health issues.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Four months after SARS-CoV-2 infection, 22%-50% of COVID-19 patients still experience complaints. Long COVID is a heterogeneous disease and finding subtypes could aid in optimising and developing treatment for the individual patient.

Methods: Data were collected from 95 patients in the P4O2 COVID-19 cohort at 3-6 months after infection.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Response to the Letter to the Editor regarding "Mobile phone use and brain tumour risk - COSMOS, a prospective cohort study".

Environ Int

May 2024

Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK; Medical Research Council (MRC) Centre for Environment and Health, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK; National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Protection Research Unit in Chemical and Radiation Threats and Hazards, Imperial College London, London, UK; NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, Imperial College London, London, UK. Electronic address:

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Outdoor air pollution as a risk factor for testing positive for SARS-CoV-2: A nationwide test-negative case-control study in the Netherlands.

Int J Hyg Environ Health

June 2024

Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences (IRAS), Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands; National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), Centre for Infectious Disease Control (CIb), Bilthoven, the Netherlands. Electronic address:

Air pollution is a known risk factor for several diseases, but the extent to which it influences COVID-19 compared to other respiratory diseases remains unclear. We performed a test-negative case-control study among people with COVID-19-compatible symptoms who were tested for SARS-CoV-2 infection, to assess whether their long- and short-term exposure to ambient air pollution (AAP) was associated with testing positive (vs. negative) for SARS-CoV-2.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Despite the known link between air pollution and cause-specific mortality, its relation to chronic kidney disease (CKD)-associated mortality is understudied. Therefore, we investigated the association between long-term exposure to air pollution and CKD-related mortality in a large multicentre population-based European cohort. Cohort data were linked to local mortality registry data.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Dysregulation of adipogenesis and disrupted lipid metabolism by the antidepressants citalopram and sertraline.

Toxicol Appl Pharmacol

May 2024

Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Population Health Sciences, Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, 3584 CM Utrecht, the Netherlands. Electronic address:

Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) are widely used medications for the treatment of major depressive disorder. However, long-term SSRI use has been associated with weight gain and altered lipid profiles. These findings suggest that SSRIs may have negative effects on metabolism.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Adopting Mechanistic Molecular Biology Approaches in Exposome Research for Causal Understanding.

Environ Sci Technol

April 2024

European Commission, DG Research and Innovation, Sq. Frère-Orban 8, 1000 Bruxelles, Belgium.

Through investigating the combined impact of the environmental exposures experienced by an individual throughout their lifetime, exposome research provides opportunities to understand and mitigate negative health outcomes. While current exposome research is driven by epidemiological studies that identify associations between exposures and effects, new frameworks integrating more substantial population-level metadata, including electronic health and administrative records, will shed further light on characterizing environmental exposure risks. Molecular biology offers methods and concepts to study the biological and health impacts of exposomes in experimental and computational systems.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF