Impact of El Nino on Environmental Mercury and Human Exposure

厄尔尼诺现象对环境汞和人体接触的影响

• 批准号: 9155278
• 负责人: WILLIAM KUANG-YAO PAN
• 金额: $ 15.95万
• 依托单位: DUKE UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-04-01 至 2018-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9155278
• 关键词: Accounting; Address; Adult; Affect; Agriculture; Anaerobic Bacteria; Area; Bacteria; Biological; Birth; Blood; Blood specimen; Child; Climate; Communicable Diseases; Communities; Community Developments; Community Health; Consumption; Coupled; Data; Data Collection; Dengue; Deposition; Development; Diet; Disasters; Dose; Droughts; Ecosystem; Enrollment; Environment; Environmental Exposure; Event; Exposure to; Face; Fetus; Fish Proteins; Fisheries; Fishes; Floods; Food; Food Supply; Food Webs; Frequencies; Future; Gases; Gold; Hair; Harvest; Health; Household; Human; Infant; Knowledge; Latin America; Life; Malaria; Marketing; Measures; Mercury; Metals; Methylation; Methylmercury Compounds; Mining; Natural Resources; Neurotoxins; Nutritional; Nutritional status; Perinatal Exposure; Persons; Peru; Peruvian; Pollution; Population; Positioning Attribute; Pregnant Women; Prevalence; Process; Production; Readiness; Research; Rivers; Sampling; Scientist; Seasons; Sentinel; Soil; Source; Surveys; Testing; Time; Toxicology; Training; Umbilical Cord Blood; Variant; Vector-transmitted infectious disease; Vulnerable Populations; Water; anthropogenesis; bioaccumulation; climate change; cohort; contaminated seafood; disorder risk; enteric pathogen; environmental change; experience; exposed human population; insight; migration; mother nutrition; novel; planetary Atmosphere; predictive modeling; public health relevance; social; tool

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Beginning in November 2015, Peru will experience one of the largest El Niño climate events on record. Scientists have historically focused on studying impacts from El Niño in coastal areas due to relatively dry regions experiencing large-scale flooding. Research has largely overlooked the effects of El Niño in the Amazon and its consequences for human health beyond vector-borne disease risk. The Madre de Dios (MDD) region of the Peruvian Amazon is expected to face a challenging El Niño season with over 90% of the population experiencing both excessive drought and flooding. These environmental changes are coupled with an ongoing social challenge: artisanal small-scale gold mining (ASGM) that has rapidly expanded due to construction of the Interoceanic Highway. ASGM releases inorganic mercury (Hg) directly into proximate soil and river sediment, where anaerobic bacteria bio-methylate Hg to form the potent neurotoxicant methylmercury (MeHg) that biomagnifies in the aquatic food web. Communities near and far downstream from ASGM are exposed to high levels of MeHg via consumption of contaminated fish. Our primary hypothesis is that El Niño is associated with increased human MeHg exposure due to elevated rates of Hg bio-methylation in aquatic ecosystems and increased fish consumption. We hypothesize that: (1) El Niño will disrupt agricultural production, leading to increased reliance on fish protein; () Hg released into the environment by ASGM will undergo more rapid bio-methylation due to higher bacterial activity in sediment caused by El Niño- related flooding; (3) fish in flooded rivrs downstream from ASGM and sold in markets will contain higher levels of MeHg; and (4) environmental Hg exposures in adults, children, and developing fetuses will increase with higher dietary exposure and nutritional vulnerability. We will develop a predictive model for human internal MeHg dose that accounts for El Niño-related environmental changes. Our team is uniquely positioned to evaluate the impact of El Niño in the Amazon by leveraging ongoing research in MDD with prior data collected on Hg levels in environmental and human biological samples. In addition, we leverage our long-term collaborative partnerships with community leaders and the Ministry of Health to assist in implementation of our aims. To test our hypotheses, we will collect additional primary data by testing fish, sediment and human biological samples for Hg and other metals in areas and people previously sampled by our team during and following El Niño, conduct monthly food frequency surveys in sentinel households (previously sampled), and initiate a birth cohort (enrolling 10 children per month). Results from this proposed study will help establish whether El Niño flooding is associated with increased MeHg exposure, identify sources of exposures, and determine exposure thresholds associated with observable health effects among persons living in the Amazon. As El Niño events occur regularly and are projected to intensify in the future, this project has significant potential to inform future disaster preparedness and to protect the wellbeing of vulnerable regional populations.

 描述（由申请人提供）：从 2015 年 11 月开始，秘鲁将经历有记录以来最大的厄尔尼诺气候事件之一，科学家历来重点研究厄尔尼诺现象对沿海地区的影响，因为相对干旱的地区会发生大规模洪水。研究在很大程度上忽视了厄尔尼诺现象对亚马逊地区的影响及其对人类健康造成的影响，而不仅仅是媒介传播的疾病风险。预计秘鲁亚马逊地区的马德雷德迪奥斯（MDD）地区将面临一个充满挑战的厄尔尼诺季节。 90% 的人口同时经历过度干旱和洪水。这些环境变化伴随着持续的社会挑战：由于跨洋高速公路的建设而迅速扩张的手工小规模采金业 (ASGM) 释放无机汞 (Hg)。 ）直接进入附近的土壤和河流沉积物中，厌氧细菌将汞生物甲基化，形成强效神经毒剂甲基汞（MeHg），并在水生食物网中生物放大。我们的主要假设是，由于水生生态系统中汞生物甲基化率升高和鱼类消费增加，厄尔尼诺现象与人类甲基汞暴露增加有关。我们率先提出：(1) 厄尔尼诺现象将扰乱农业生产，导致对鱼类蛋白质的依赖增加；() 由于厄尔尼诺现象导致沉积物中的细菌活性更高，手工和小规模采金释放到环境中的汞将经历更快的生物甲基化 -相关洪水；(3) 手工和小规模采金下游被淹没的河流中并在市场上出售的鱼含有较高水平的甲基汞；(4) 成人、儿童和发育中的胎儿的环境汞暴露将随着膳食暴露和营养脆弱性的增加而增加。将开发一个人体内部甲基汞剂量的预测模型，该模型可以解释与厄尔尼诺相关的环境变化。我们的团队具有独特的优势，可以利用正在进行的 MDD 研究以及之前收集的汞水平数据来评估厄尔尼诺对亚马逊地区的影响。此外，我们利用与社区领袖和卫生部的长期合作伙伴关系来协助实现我们的目标，为了检验我们的假设，我们将通过测试鱼类、沉积物和样本来收集更多的主要数据。我们的团队之前在厄尔尼诺现象期间和之后采样的地区和人群中采集了汞和其他金属的人体生物样本，对哨点家庭（之前采样）进行每月食物频率调查，并启动出生队列（每月招募 10 名儿童）。这项拟议的研究将帮助确定厄尔尼诺洪水是否与甲基汞暴露增加有关，确定暴露源，并确定与生活在亚马逊地区的人们可观察到的健康影响相关的暴露阈值。该项目具有为未来备灾提供信息并保护脆弱地区人口福祉的巨大潜力。