In praise of imperfection: why field kits for environmental contaminants should be more widely used.
Abstract
Human exposure to environmental toxicants in air, water, and soil accounts for an estimated 10-20% of the global burden of disease. The dose-health impact relationships for a number of these toxicants may be well established but follow-up has typically been inadequate, in developing as well as in industrialized countries. This presentation will rely on three concrete examples of spatial patterns of pollution of air (black carbon in New York City), water (arsenic in Bangladesh well water), and soil (lead in Peruvian mining towns) to make the case that lack of access to environmental data, rather than complacency, are the root causes of these inadequate responses. The same examples will be used to make a second point, which is that in some situations large quantities of lower-grade data obtained with a field kit or sensors connected to a smartphone by non-scientists may be more effective in terms addressing a health hazard than a small number of more precise laboratory measurements by experts. The reason is that many contaminants are distributed very heterogeneously in the environment. This complicates prediction and dictates the need for many measurements and therefore often local involvement. But the same spatial heterogeneity can also point the way to solutions by identifying sources or avoidance strategies. An open-source approach to collecting and disseminating environmental data, however, raises a number of issues including how some required level of data quality can be ensured and how detailed spatial data can be displayed while still preserving privacy.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFMGH13A1049V
- Keywords:
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- 0240 Public health;
- GEOHEALTH;
- 4334 Disaster risk communication;
- NATURAL HAZARDS;
- 4352 Interaction between science and disaster management authorities;
- NATURAL HAZARDS;
- 8488 Volcanic hazards and risks;
- VOLCANOLOGY