FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
1 June 2009

CONTACT: Julie Hayworth-Perman
919-653-2583

Modern Environmental Health Hazards in Africa
Lack of safeguards contributing factor to disease

(RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC) A review article published in the June 2009 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP) suggests that with the absence of appropriate safeguards for environment and health, modern environmental health hazards are rapidly contributing to Africa’s disease burden.

Traditional environmental health hazards such as lack of access to potable water, indoor air pollution from biomass burning and lack of sanitation and hygiene have long plagued African nations. However, with growth in urbanization and industrialization, these countries are now facing more modern environmental health hazards such as heavy metals like lead and mercury, pesticides and air toxics. Sources of these hazards include consumer goods, household paint, leaded gasoline (which is still sold in North Africa), pesticides, industrial pollution, domestic and hazardous waste, polluted water and artisanal gold mining and processing. With increased urbanization and industrialization of many African cities, air pollution in particular has become an issue of public health concern.

Current management of modern environmental health hazards in Africa is inadequate, and it is necessary to put in place various safeguards for environmental health, such as stable institutions, adequate infrastructure, monitoring capacity and regulatory frameworks. Human exposure to such hazards has the potential to significantly affect the levels of illness and disease in Africa. For those populations with compounding factors that impair resilience to toxicologic challenges, such as malnutrition, the disease burden may be higher.

“Assuring population health and well-being in the near future will depend not only on how well traditional hazards and risks are managed, but also on the degree to which [modern environmental health hazards] and their potential impacts are prevented or controlled,” wrote authors Onyemaechi C. Nweke and William H. Sanders III, who both work for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“Emerging environmental health hazards may rapidly and substantially increase Africa’s disease burden, and a drastic and swift change in public health policy is needed to specifically address these hazards and thereby reduce avoidable illness and premature death,” said EHP editor-in-chief Hugh A. Tilson, PhD.

The article is available free of charge at http://www.ehponline.org/members/2009/0800126/0800126.html

EHP is published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. EHP is an Open Access journal. More information is available online at http://www.ehponline.org/. Brogan & Partners Convergence Marketing handles marketing and public relations for the publication and is responsible for creation and distribution of this press release.

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