IAEA Safety Standards for protecting people and the environment
Environmental Research Letters
Microplastic debris floating at the ocean surface can harm marine life. Understanding the severity of this harm requires knowledge of plastic abundance and distributions. Dozens of expeditions measuring microplastics... have been carried out since the 1970s, but they have primarily focused on the North Atlantic and North Pacific accumulation zones, with much sparser coverage elsewhere. Here, we use the largest dataset of microplastic measurements assembled to date to assess the confidence we can have in global estimates of microplastic abundance and mass. We use a rigorous statistical framework to standardize a global dataset of plastic marine debris measured using surface-trawling plankton nets and coupled this with three different ocean circulation models to spatially interpolate the observations. Our estimates show that the accumulated number of microplastic particles in 2014 ranges from 15 to 51 trillion particles, weighing between 93 and 236 thousand metric tons, which is only approximately 1% of global plastic waste estimated to enter the ocean in the year 2010. These estimates are larger than previous global estimates, but vary widely because the scarcity of data in most of the world ocean, differences in model formulations, and fundamental knowledge gaps in the sources, transformations and fates of microplastics in the ocean.
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Building on our decades of commitment to human rights in medicine and healthcare, we have published a new report on emerging threats in health-related human rights both globally and in the UK.
'Health and human rights in the new world (dis)order' outlines a shifting rights landscape in which new ...technologies, environmental change and geopolitical reconfigurations are putting renewed and at times intense stress on human rights, both in medicine and healthcare more broadly.
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Environment International Volume 86, January 2016, Pages 14-23
Climate change refers to long-term shifts in weather conditions and patterns of extreme weather events. It may lead to changes in health threat to human beings, multiplying existing hea...lth problems. This review examines the scientific evidences on the impact of climate change on human infectious diseases. It identifies research progress and gaps on how human society may respond to, adapt to, and prepare for the related changes. Based on a survey of related publications between 1990 and 2015, the terms used for literature selection reflect three aspects — the components of infectious diseases, climate variables, and selected infectious diseases. Humans' vulnerability to the potential health impacts by climate change is evident in literature. As an active agent, human beings may control the related health effects that may be effectively controlled through adopting proactive measures, including better understanding of the climate change patterns and of the compound disease-specific health effects, and effective allocation of technologies and resources to promote healthy lifestyles and public awareness. The following adaptation measures are recommended: 1) to go beyond empirical observations of the association between climate change and infectious diseases and develop more scientific explanations, 2) to improve the prediction of spatial–temporal process of climate change and the associated shifts in infectious diseases at various spatial and temporal scales, and 3) to establish locally effective early warning systems for the health effects of predicated climate change.
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Environment International Volume 146, January 2021, 106245.
We use soils to provide 98.8% of our food, but we must ensure that the pressure we place on soils to provide this food in the short-term does not inadvertently push the Earth into a less h...ospitable state in the long-term. Using the planetary boundaries framework, we show that soils are a master variable for regulating critical Earth-system processes. Indeed, of the seven Earth-systems that have been quantified, soils play a critical and substantial role in changing the Earth-systems in at least two, either directly or indirectly, as well as smaller contributions for a further three.
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A Community Guide to Environmental Health > Chapter 19: Health Care Waste. Please download this chapter from the website of Hesperian
The role of environmental contamination in transmission of COVID-19 virus is currently not clear. This protocol has been designed to determine (viable) virus presence and persistence on fomites in various locations where a patient infected with COVI...D-19 is currently receiving care or being isolated, and to understand how this may relate to COVID-19 transmission events in these settings. It is therefore important that it is done as part of a comprehensive outbreak investigation and that information obtained by environmental studies is combined with the results of epidemiological, laboratory and sequence data from COVID-19 patient investigations.
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A technical and environmental comparative overview of common shelter typologies found in settlements across UNHCR operations
IAEA Safety Standards for protecting people and the environment
In line with the Climate and Environment Charter for Humanitarian Organisations which IFRC, ICRC and various Red Cross Red Crescent National Societies have endorsed, this short Guide aims to help practitioners integrate ...hlight medbox">environmental and climate change considerations into their work. It has been developed primarily for logistics staff, administrative staff, and management. It is not necessary to be an environmental expert to use this Guide.
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There are social and environmental barriers faced by persons with disabilities which have been reported in literature. In discussing these barriers, attention is yet to be given to the support from families to members with disabilities. This study a...imed to examine family support and its impact on the lives of persons with disabilities in Ghana.
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The Atlas of health and climate is a product of this unique collaboration between the meteorological and public health communities. It provides sound scientific information on the connections between weather and climate and major health challenges. These range from diseases of poverty to emergencies... arising from extreme weather events and disease outbreaks. They also include environmental degradation, the increasing prevalence of noncommunicable diseases and the universal trend of demographic ageing.
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English Analysis on World about Climate Change and Environment, Health and Epidemic; published on 03 Nov 2021 by World Bank
IAEA Safety Standards for protecting people and the environment
IAEA Safety Standards for protecting people and the environment
PNAS 119 (8) e2113947119 | https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2113947119
Environmental exposure to active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) can have negative effects on the health of ecosystems and humans. While numerous studies have monitored APIs in r...ivers, these employ different analytical methods, measure different APIs, and have ignored many of the countries of the world. This makes it difficult to quantify the scale of the problem from a global perspective. Furthermore, comparison of the existing data, generated for different studies/regions/continents, is challenging due to the vast differences between the analytical methodologies employed. Here, we present a global-scale study of API pollution in 258 of the world’s rivers, representing the environmental influence of 471.4 million people across 137 geographic regions. Samples were obtained from 1,052 locations in 104 countries (representing all continents and 36 countries not previously studied for API contamination) and analyzed for 61 APIs. Highest cumulative API concentrations were observed in sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia, and South America. The most contaminated sites were in low- to middle-income countries and were associated with areas with poor wastewater and waste management infrastructure and pharmaceutical manufacturing. The most frequently detected APIs were carbamazepine, metformin, and caffeine (a compound also arising from lifestyle use), which were detected at over half of the sites monitored. Concentrations of at least one API at 25.7% of the sampling sites were greater than concentrations considered safe for aquatic organisms, or which are of concern in terms of selection for antimicrobial resistance. Therefore, pharmaceutical pollution poses a global threat to environmental and human health, as well as to delivery of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
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The Government recognizes the critical role of the built environment in addressing climate change and environmental degradation. To this end, it has identified and empowered the Kenya Building Resea...rch Centre to champion and coordinate the government’s green building agenda in relation to climate change mitigation and adaptation as stipulated in the Centre’s Strategic Plan (2017/2018 – 2021/2022)
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The strategic plan reflects shared commitments to enhance collaboration between environmental, animal (wildlife and domestic) and human health, and building new One Health workforce capacity through higher institutions of learning. The strategy also... outlines interventions to be undertaken by government institutions and other partners to enhance existing structures and pool together additional resources to prevent and control zoonotic diseases and other events of public health importance. Successful implementation of the strategy will contribute to the realization of vision 2020 by improving public health, food safety and security, and hence significantly improve the socioeconomic status of the people of Rwanda. It is in this regard that we call upon implementing institutions, bilateral and multilateral partners, civil society and the private sector to join us in implementing the One Health strategy in Rwanda.
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This document provides training and guidance on the key standards related to the physical and social environment within mental health and related services that need to be met to promote good outcomes, independent living and community inclusion.
The importance of growing up in a nurturing and supportive family environment cannot be underestimated. Raising children in a warm, loving environment sets them on a positive developmental trajector...y for later life success (Biglan et al, 2012). Conversely, children raised in homes with inconsistent and harsh parenting or with high levels of conflict can be adversely impacted.
Introduction - Chapter A.12
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