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Lifetime exposure to arsenic in residential drinking water in Central Europe

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Abstract

Objective

Methods and results are presented for an arsenic exposure assessment integral to an epidemiological case–control study of arsenic and cancer—the European Commission funded ASHRAM (Arsenic Health Risk Assessment and Molecular Epidemiology) study carried out in some counties of Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.

Methods

The exposure history of each participant (N = 1,392) was constructed by taking into account how much water they consumed (as water, in drinks and in food), sources of drinking water in their various residences over their lifetime, and the concentrations of arsenic in their various water supplies measured by Hydride Generation-Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (HG-AAS). Concentrations of arsenic in previous water supplies were either derived from contemporary analyses of the same source, or from routine historical data from measurements performed by the authorities in each country. Using this approach, 80% of the recorded lifetime residential history was matched to an arsenic concentration. Seven indices of current, life time, and peak exposure were calculated.

Results

The exposure indices were all log-normally distributed and the mean and median lifetime average concentrations were in Hungary 14.7 and 13.3 μg l−1, Romania 3.8 and 0.7 μg l−1 and in Slovakia 1.9 and 0.8 μg l−1, respectively. Overall 25% of the population had average concentrations over 10 μg l−1 and 8% with exposure over 50 μg l−1.

Conclusions

Careful assessment of arsenic in drinking water supplies (both current and previous) enabled the majority of study participants’ cumulative lifetime of potential exposure to arsenic in residential water to be characterised.

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Acknowledgments

We acknowledge financial support from the European Commission, contract QLK4-CT-2001-00264 (ASHRAM). We thank the participants in the ASHRAM project, and experts in the water authorities in Hungary, Slovakia and Romania.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. PEHRU Public and Environmental Health Research Unit, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London, WC1E 7HT, UK

    Rupert Lloyd Hough, Tony Fletcher, Giovanni Sebastiano Leonardi & Felicity Clemens

  2. Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards, Health Protection Agency, Chilton, UK

    Giovanni Sebastiano Leonardi

  3. Institute for Chemistry, Analytical Chemistry, Karl-Franzens-Universität, Graz, Austria

    Walter Goessler

  4. Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, European Institute of Oncology, Milan, Italy

    Patrizia Gnagnarella

  5. Environmental Health Centre, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    Eugen Gurzau

  6. State Health Institute, Banska Bystrica, Slovakia

    Kvetoslava Koppova

  7. National Institute of Environmental Health, Budapest, Hungary

    Peter Rudnai

  8. Division of Molecular Genetic Epidemiology, German Cancer Research Centre, Heidelberg, Germany

    Rajiv Kumar

  9. Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden

    Marie Vahter

  10. The Macaulay Land Use Research Institute, Aberdeen, AB15 8QH, UK

    Rupert Lloyd Hough

Authors
  1. Rupert Lloyd Hough
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  2. Tony Fletcher
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  3. Giovanni Sebastiano Leonardi
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  4. Walter Goessler
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  5. Patrizia Gnagnarella
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  6. Felicity Clemens
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  7. Eugen Gurzau
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  8. Kvetoslava Koppova
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  9. Peter Rudnai
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  10. Rajiv Kumar
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  11. Marie Vahter
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tony Fletcher.

Appendix

Appendix

Archived measurements of arsenic in drinking water in Hungary and Slovakia

In Hungary the detailed data, on which the historical estimates were based, were derived from the following data sources summarising arsenic concentrations measured by different laboratories (the majority by the National Institute of Environmental Health (previously called as National Institute of Public Health, NIPH)):

  • The data found in the original logbooks of the instruments used in the NIPH in the 1980s were entered into an electronic database

  • The data stored on paper records at the Békés County Public Health Institute were also entered into an electronic database

  • A study document prepared some years ago by Dr Csanády (National Institute of Environmental Health, Budapest) on the history of the assessment of arsenic exposure via drinking water, the various types of interventions and their results, contained data on concentrations of arsenic before and after remediation in 70 settlements

  • The full database of a country-wide survey on arsenic content of piped drinking water carried out between 1997 and 1999

  • Data from more recent measurements in various settlements where changes in the source(s) of drinking water had occurred.

A list of settlements of residence reported in the questionnaires was created, and Institute staff, drawing on the above resources, provided the concentration profile each year from 1980 to the present, for each community water supply. This table was then sent to the four County Public Health Institutes for comments. As a result, some further changes were performed and the final archive database was again approved by the County Public Health Institutes.

In Slovakia, the State Health Institutes and the Middle and West Slovakia Waterworks and Sewerage Authorities, had established a database of arsenic concentrations in public water supplies covering the period 1989–2004 including about 1,500 results. Further results were available for the public water supplies where concentrations of arsenic had been significantly reduced due to measures realised after the change of the As limit value to 10 μg l−1 (Decree of Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic). The database was matched to each residential area included in the study (330 residencies).

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Hough, R.L., Fletcher, T., Leonardi, G.S. et al. Lifetime exposure to arsenic in residential drinking water in Central Europe. Int Arch Occup Environ Health 83, 471–481 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-010-0519-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-010-0519-1

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