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Environmental epidemiology has proven critical to study various associations between environmental exposures and adverse human health effects. However, there is a perception that it often does not sufficiently inform quantitative risk assessment. To help address this concern, in 2017, the Health and Environmental Sciences Institute initiated a project engaging the epidemiology, exposure science, and risk assessment communities with tripartite representation from government agencies, industry, and academia, in a dialogue on the use of environmental epidemiology for quantitative risk assessment and public health decision making. As part of this project, four meetings attended by experts in epidemiology, exposure science, toxicology, statistics, and risk assessment, as well as one additional meeting engaging funding agencies, were organized to explore incentives and barriers to realizing the full potential of epidemiological data in quantitative risk assessment. A set of questions was shared with workshop participants prior to the meetings, and two case studies were used to support the discussion. Five key ideas emerged from these meetings as areas of desired improvement to ensure that human data can more consistently become an integral part of quantitative risk assessment: 1) reducing confirmation and publication bias, 2) increasing communication with funding agencies to raise awareness of research needs, 3) developing alternative funding channels targeted to support quantitative risk assessment, 4) making data available for reuse and analysis, and 5) developing cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral interactions, collaborations, and training. We explored and integrated these themes into a roadmap illustrating the need for a multi-stakeholder effort to ensure that epidemiological data can fully contribute to the quantitative evaluation of human health risks, and to build confidence in a reliable decision-making process that leverages the totality of scientific evidence.

This study aims to obtain knowledge of how ASD individuals differ from their normally developed equals in terms of physical literacy and quality of life on a stage of early adolescents. Data have been collected from two samples: 18 males with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) aged 11-13 years (main group) and 30 males aged 11-12 years without ASD diagnosis (control group, CG). Canadian Assessment of Physical Literacy - second edition (CAPL-2) has been applied for assessing the level of physical literacy. Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL™4.0) has been used to assess the quality of life. Children with ASD have the most significant lag in static strength endurance of muscles (84%), coordination, dynamic, and static balance lag behind the standard (by 67% to 45%). The quality of life following the Emotional Functioning scale is relatively low both in children with ASD (58.42 ± 19.51 points) and healthy respondents (69.50 ± 17.04 points). Respondents with ASD indicate that it is hard to establish good relationships with other children (47.37%), had complaints about bullying (21.05%), and maintain the required pace of the game (68.43%). Physical education programs should focus more on coping with disabled children in the integration environment and better preparation of ASD children for physical activity which requires social interaction like playing sports games. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the practical contributions of epidemiology studies is to inform risk assessment and management to protect public health. However, there is a perception among some that environmental and occupational epidemiology is falling short of satisfying the needs of risk assessors. The specific reasons for this are not clearly understood. To help identify the points of dissatisfaction and possible areas for mutual learning, we conducted a survey of risk assessors, seeking their opinions of epidemiology research. We present a few quantitative measures and a thematic analysis of responses to open-ended questions. Survey results suggest that some risk assessors (with some adamant exceptions) believe that epidemiology has great potential to contribute to risk assessment but can be deficient in many ways. For example, respondents identified the lack of full disclosure of methods, deficiencies in exposure assessment, the absence of comprehensive uncertainty analyses, and the failure to investigate or explore thresholds of effects as some of the common shortcomings. These could be straightforward to address. Respondents also brought up a wide collection of more complicated and subtle concerns that could lead to further improvement of useful results. We identify areas where mutually-educating interdisciplinary dialogue seems particularly promising. Epidemiology research is expensive, and risk management decisions even more so; therefore, it is desirable for the risk assessment and epidemiologic communities to work toward making epidemiologic research more useful for informing decisions., Competing Interests: The authors declare no financial conflicts of interest other than their employment relationships with companies that might have some unidentified goals that conflict with the goals of this work. IB and CVP disclose activism on behalf of better bias analyses and other improvements in the conduct of epidemiology, belief in existence of thresholds in biology, and sincere desire to make risk assessment more quantitative. While there is no apparent way that the financing of this project would create any conflict of interest regarding the project goals, design, or analysis, we also disclose that CVP was contracted for this project by HESI, IB subsumed it into his academic duties, SD worked on it as part of her employment at HESI, and the other authors volunteered their time., (© 2024 The Authors.)

Finfish and shellfish intake (collectively referred to as fish) has been associated with health benefits, although fish often have chemical contaminants that are separately associated with health risks. The presence of chemical contaminants, however, does not inherently pose a health risk and optimizing the benefits is desirable for individual and population health. Reference doses (RfDs) and other comparison values that estimate contaminant or pollutant safety thresholds typically do not account for the benefits of the foods that carry them (e.g., fish, eggs, fruit, vegetables). Rather, these numbers are typically applied uniformly for various media such as food, soil, and water. This paper summarizes principal epidemiology studies on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)-associated noncancer health indicators used by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop RfDs for PFAS and compares these with the same health outcomes associated with seafood intake. Moreover, it frames these findings in relation to varying human PFAS exposures, fish intake amount, and fish type when the information is available. Further, it presents brief overviews of both general population temporal PFAS exposure trends and PFAS fish contaminant data in the United States. Finally, it discusses approaches that risk assessors and policy makers can consider in developing their fish consumption recommendations in relation to PFAS. In brief, epidemiology studies show that the benefits of fish intake generally counter the risks of PFAS exposure based on four noncancer health endpoints that EPA identified as having the greatest strength of evidence for PFAS health effects., Competing Interests: The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests:Ali Hamade is an associate editor for Toxicology Reports. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. The opinions and analyses in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the Oregon Health Authority or the State of Oregon., (© 2024 The Authors.)

On August 12, 2014, an Anchorage hospital notified the Alaska Section of Epidemiology (SOE) that a middle-aged male resident of Anchorage (patient A) had arrived in the emergency department with possible palytoxin exposure. Patient A complained of a bitter metallic taste, fever, weakness, cough, and muscle pain 7-8 hours after introduction of live zoanthid coral into his home aquarium. Palytoxin, a potent toxin known to produce the reported effects, is contained in zoanthid marine corals.