Approximately 2.8 billion people cook with solid fuels. Research has focused on the health impacts of indoor exposure to fine particulate pollution. Here, for the 2010 Global Burden of Disease project (GBD 2010), we evaluate the impact of household cooking with solid fuels on regional population-weighted ambient PM2.5 pollution (APM2.5). The researchers estimated the proportion and concentrations of APM2.5 attributable to household cooking with solid fuels (PM2.5-cook) for the years 1990, 2005, and 2010 in 170 countries; and associated ill-health.

Usage of pyrethroid insecticides has increased dramatically over the past decade; however, data on their potential health effects, particularly on children, are limited. The researchers examined the cross-sectional association between postnatal pyrethroid exposure and parental report of learning disability (LD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children 6-15 years of age.

Pesticide exposure may be positively associated with depression. Few previous studies have considered the episodic nature of depression or examined individual pesticides. The researchers evaluated associations between pesticide exposure and depression among male
private pesticide applicators in the Agricultural Health Study.

The researchers linked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Air Toxics tract-level data with the Nurses’ Health Study, a prospective cohort of female nurses. Over the course of 18 years of follow-up from 1990 through 2008, they identified 425 incident cases of PD. The researchers examined the association of risk of PD with the following metals that were part of the first U.S. EPA collections in 1990, 1996, and 1999: arsenic, antimony, cadmium, chromium, lead, manganese, mercury, and nickel.

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are developmental toxicants but the impact of both maternal and paternal exposures on offspring birth size is largely unexplored. The objective of the study was to examine associations between maternal and paternal serum concentrations of 63 POPs, comprising five major classes of pollutants, with birth size measures.

Exposure to household air pollution (HAP) from inefficient biomass and coal stoves kills nearly 4 million people every year worldwide. HAP is an environmental risk associated with poverty that affects an estimated 3 billion people mostly in low- and middle-income countries. The objective of the study was to estimate the number of low-income Americans exposed to potentially health-damaging concentrations of HAP.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), organochlorine pesticides, and methylmercury (MeHg) are environmentally persistent with adverse effects on neurodevelopment. However, especially among populations with commonly experienced low levels of exposure, research on neurodevelopmental effects of these toxicants has produced conflicting results. The objective of the study was to assess the low-level prenatal exposure to these contaminants with memory and learning.

Half the world's population lives in urban areas. It is therefore important to identify characteristics of the built environment that are beneficial to human health. Urban greenness has been associated with improvements in a diverse range of health conditions, including birth outcomes; however, few studies have attempted to distinguish potential effects of greenness from those of other spatially correlated exposures related to the built environment.

Traffic noise has been associated with prevalence of hypertension, but reports are inconsistent for blood pressure (BP). People’s noise exposure indoors might be essential to ascertain effects and disentangle them from those suspected for traffic-related air pollution.

Epidemiological studies have reported associations between air pollution exposure and increases in cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Exposure to air pollutants can influence cardiac autonomic tone and reduce heart rate variability, and may increase the risk of cardiac arrhythmias, particularly in susceptible patient groups.