Occupational and Environmental Medicine

IntroductionMusculoskeletal injuries (MSKIs) are ubiquitous in the U.S. military, especially among high-performing service members such as Marines. Given that female service members only started to be assigned to ground combat roles since December 2015, evaluation of sex on MSKI risk in ground combat occupations has not been possible until there was an ample population to study. The purpose of this population-level epidemiological study was to assess (1) if female sex was a salient risk factor f...

BackgroundOutdoor workers are particularly vulnerable to the adverse impacts of heat, but many studies focus on heat exposure in residential settings only. This leads to a limited understanding of the full mortality burden due to occupational heat exposures. Here, we aimed to improve estimates of the total, short-term mortality burden attributable to outdoor occupational heat exposure in the United States (US). MethodsWe developed a panel data set for 3,108 US counties during 2010-2019 by linki...

Purpose: The GIG-OSH cohort was established to investigate the impact of digital platform work on occupational safety and health (OSH), working and employment conditions, and health in seven countries in Europe. Participants: The cohort comprises 3,945 digital platform workers from seven European countries. The sample includes both web-based workers (e.g., micro-tasking, freelance design) and on-location workers (e.g., delivery, transport). Participants were recruited using non-probabilistic sam...

BackgroundWhile veterinary surgeons are known to have particularly high rates of injury compared to other sectors, little is known about rates of injury among veterinary students. This study aims to understand animal-related injury rates, injury context and mechanisms, attitudes to reporting injuries, and behaviour change among UK and Irish veterinary students. MethodsA survey was distributed to students across all veterinary schools operating in the UK and Ireland in 2021. Questions explored p...

BackgroundLung cancer compensation systems for occupational exposure to asbestos commonly apply Helsinki criteria, which assume 4% excess lung cancer risk per fibre-year of asbestos exposure. The Probability of Causation (PoC) is [≥]50% at 25 fibre-years (risk doubling threshold). Large case-control studies have suggested steeper exposure-response relations at lower exposures. We aimed to estimate PoC of asbestos-related lung cancer to evaluate exposure thresholds for compensation of lung ca...

Compassion fatigue is a well-documented hazard among healthcare and veterinary professionals, yet the psychological toll on informal caregivers of feral cat colonies, likely numbering several tens of thousands in Portugal, remains largely unexplored. This cross-sectional study examines internal and external factors associated with the secondary traumatic stress component of compassion fatigue among 172 informal caregivers in Portugal. Secondary traumatic stress refers to work-related secondary e...

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic required South African public sector HIV viral load (VL) laboratories to scale up Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) testing while maintaining essential HIV services. This placed additional pressure on diagnostic services. This dual mandate introduced significant occupational and environmental challenges (OEC) for staff that remain underexplored. ObjectiveThis study aimed to investigate the OEC and effects that staff experienced during t...

Millions of outdoor workers cannot avoid wildfire smoke, likely leading to inequalities in exposure and health risk. We characterized work-related exposure to wildfire PM2.5 for 3,108 contiguous US counties during 2006-2019. Despite experiencing less ambient exposure to wildfire PM2.5, counties with higher portions of non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic Americans experienced higher work-related exposure. We also find suggestive evidence that the effect of ambient smoke fine particulate matter (PM2.5...

BackgroundEvidence suggests maternal exposure to ambient air pollution increases the risk of stillbirth, but few studies conducted in the United States have evaluated temporally varying exposures or susceptibility across gestational windows. Moreover, the generalizability of existing findings is often limited by restricted geographic coverage or reliance on selected study populations. MethodsUsing Georgia vital records from 2005 to 2014, we conducted a matched case-control study including 8,384...

IntroductionGrowing evidence suggests pesticide exposure can affect emotional well-being; limited research exists across adolescence and young adulthood. We examined cross-sectional and longitudinal associations of pesticide biomarkers with anxiety and depression scores. MethodsWe analyzed 646 participants from Ecuadorian agricultural communities: 510 in 2016 (ages 11-17y) and 485 in 2022 (17-24y). Twelve urinary insecticide metabolites were measured. Validated questionnaires assessed depressio...

BackgroundEnvironment-wide association studies (ExWAS) offer a systematic approach to identifying chemical biomarker-health outcome associations, yet few have applied rigorous multi-stage validation. MethodsWe screened 92 chemical biomarkers against 48 health outcomes in NHANES 2017-2018 (2,796 tests across four screening rounds; not all chemicals were crossed with all outcomes). Associations passing an initial FDR screen were subjected to cross-cycle validation in NHANES 2015-2016--the primary...

BackgroundSmoking is a major preventable risk factor for all-cause mortality and disability worldwide. It leads to age-related diseases, but the effects and reversibility of smoking behaviors on different epigenetic clocks are not fully explored. ObjectiveTo characterize the association of epigenetic age acceleration in whole blood with active and secondhand smoking (SHS), smoking intensity, and time since cessation among U.S. adults. MethodsThis is a cross-sectional study in adults from the N...

Policing is one of the most rewarding occupations; however, it is stressful and demanding. This study was designed to explore stress, stress management, and coping mechanisms among Nigerian Police Officers working across four geopolitical zones in Nigeria. Using an exploratory design, forty in-depth interviews (IDIs) were conducted with police officers. Data was collected using an interview guide. The interviews were conducted in English and the participants indigenous languages (by preference)...

Abstract This protocol is reported in accordance with the SPIRIT 2025 guidelines for clinical trial protocols. Introduction: Young children, from birth to age 5 y are particularly vulnerable to indoor air pollutants and respiratory pathogens. Portable air purifiers (or filtration) and upper-room ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) are two widely used interventions with the potential to improve indoor air quality (IAQ) and reduce sick-related absences. However, a review of the literature re...

ObjectiveThis study aimed to adapt and validate Levensteins Perceived Stress Questionnaire (PSQ) within the Ecuadorian sociocultural context. The PSQ measures perceived stress across two temporal frames: general (past two years) and specific (past month). MethodsThe research followed five sequential phases. Study 1: linguistic and cultural adaptation through standardized translation, back-translation, expert review, and a pilot test with 300 participants. Study 2: item refinement with an additi...

BackgroundProlonged wakefulness, restricted sleep, and circadian factors can impact driving performance and road safety. Currently, there are no effective objective roadside tests to detect the state of drivers sleepiness during or prior to driving, or predict future driving impairment risk. This paper reports on an extended wakefulness protocol used to determine if a portable virtual reality device to administer vestibular-ocular motor function (VOM) tests can effectively detect 1) drivers stat...

BackgroundAntimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global public health threat driven significantly by antimicrobial misuse in agriculture, particularly in poultry farming. This study assessed the awareness, knowledge, practices, and associated factors related to antimicrobial resistance among poultry farmers in Osun State, Nigeria. MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted among 289 poultry farmers selected through stratified random sampling across Osun State. The study included actively practic...

Hospital-acquired infections are a known and growing problem worldwide. Far-UVC is a novel disinfection method that inactivates bacteria with limited penetration into human skin or eyes. A clustered, unmatched, randomized control trial (RCT) will be implemented in two Bolivian hospitals. The intervention arm will receive functioning Far-UVC lamps, whereas the control arm will receive identical lamps that do not emit UV light (shams). Based on baseline data, 40 lamp fixtures will be installed abo...

We utilized traditional aerosol sampling to collect PM1 samples, and further apply redundancy analysis (RDA) to investigate the association of environmental factors (including PM1 chemical composition, oxidative potential, meteorological factors and gaseous pollutants) and airborne bacterial community. Our findings revealed that Bacteroidota positively correlated with Sn and Mn, Firmicutes with local primary pollutants, and Proteobacteria with transportation-related pollutants. Variance partitio...

The co-occurrence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in industrial environments poses complex toxicological risks that standard additive models fail to capture. This study elucidates a novel "metabolic blockade" mechanism wherein PFAS competitively inhibits the renal excretion of VOC metabolites, thereby amplifying neurotoxic burdens. Utilizing a Double Machine Learning (DML) framework on data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey ...