• Toxicological Research
• /
• 제26권4호
• /
• pp.301-313
• /
• 2010

Growth promoters including hormonal substances and antibiotics are used legally and illegally in food producing animals for the growth promotion of livestock animals. Hormonal substances still under debate in terms of their human health impacts are estradiol-$17\beta$, progesterone, testosterone, zeranol, trenbolone, and melengestrol acetate (MGA). Many of the risk assessment results of natural steroid hormones have presented negligible impacts when they are used under good veterinary practices. For synthetic hormonelike substances, ADIs and MRLs have been established for food safety along with the approval of animal treatment. Small amounts of antibiotics added to feedstuff present growth promotion effects via the prevention of infectious diseases at doses lower than therapeutic dose. The induction of antimicrobial resistant bacteria and the disruption of normal human intestinal flora are major concerns in terms of human health impact. Regulatory guidance such as ADIs and MRLs fully reflect the impact on human gastrointestinal microflora. However, before deciding on any risk management options, risk assessments of antimicrobial resistance require large-scale evidence regarding the relationship between antimicrobial use in food-producing animals and the occurrence of antimicrobial resistance in human pathogens. In this article, the risk profiles of hormonal and antibacterial growth promoters are provided based on recent toxicity and human exposure information, and recommendations for risk management to prevent human health impacts by the use of growth promoters are also presented.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
• /
• 제12권3호
• /
• pp.211-228
• /
• 2003

Most environmental impact assessment(EIA) programs around the world require the consideration of human health impacts. Yet relatively few EIA documents adequately address those impacts. This article examines how, why, and to what extent health impacts are analyzed in environmental impact assessments. This article investigates these problems and provides recommendations to improve human health impact assessment(HIA), using methods, procedures and case study. Also, a comprehensive approach for the evaluation of possible health effects in an EIA is described, illustrated with the example of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. Unlike many EIAs, we estimated quantitatively the impact of aircraft-related pollution in terms of the number of affected people for aircraft noise annoyance, odour annoyance and hypertension. In addition, an analysis of health registry data on cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and a short survey on annoyance and risk perception were carried out.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
• /
• 제22권3호
• /
• pp.371-382
• /
• 2014

The purposes of this study were to categorize of pro-environmental clothing purchasing and disposal behaviors and to identify impacts of health and environment consciousness on pro-environmental clothing purchase and disposal behaviors. The subjects were homemakers (n=381), and they were segmented into LOHAS group, environment conscious group, unconscious group, and wellbeing group according to their health and environment consciousness. Older homemakers were included in LOHAS group and environment conscious group. And these homemakers performed pro-environmental clothing purchasing and disposal behaviors better than wellbeing group or unconscious group. Health consciousness was positively related with the second-hand clothing purchasing and recycling. Environment consciousness was positively related with clothing made with organic, natural or functional materials, or the second-hand clothing purchasing, and recycling of the second-hand clothing. There was a need to develop continuing education programs to strengthen homemakers' health and environment consciousness, or to upgrade their pro-environmental clothing purchase and disposal behaviors.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
• /
• 제19권1호
• /
• pp.15-28
• /
• 2010

Because deterioration of air quality and urban heat island directly harm health of citizens, Health Impact Assessment (HIA) and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for urban development projects needs to conduct analysis of their impacts objectively. This study aims to review appropriate methods for assessment of air quality used at each stage of urban development and to investigate prediction and assessment methods of urban heat island. In addition, by evaluating impacts of climate change following supposed urban construction performed in the central area of Korea on public health, it examines usefulness of HIA for urban construction. When urban heat island prediction and HIA method suggested in this study are applied to an imaginary city, they predict urban heat island properly and the impacts of climate changes on public health inside the city could be determined clearly by calculating life-climate index and bio-climate index related with thermal environment from the model.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
• /
• 제33권2호
• /
• pp.67-76
• /
• 2008

As the first comprehensive attempt at a national implementation, this study aims at assessing the external costs of major electricity generation technologies in Korea, particularly an evaluation of the impacts on human health resulting from exposures to atmospheric radiological emissions from nuclear power plants, and a monetary quantification of their damages. The methodology used for the assessment of the externalities of the selected fuel cycles has been developed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), namely the SimPacts Model Package. The model is internationally recognized as a tool which can be applied to a wide range of fuels, different technologies and locations, for an externalities study. In this study, the relevant emissions are quantified first and then their impacts on human health are evaluated and compared. The study focused on all the nuclear power plants for the last 6 years ($2001{\sim}2006$) in Korea. With respect to nuclear power, the impact analysis only focuses on a power generation, however the front- and back-end nuclear fuel cycles are not included, namely uranium mining, conversion, enrichment, reprocessing, conditioning, etc., because these facilities are not present in Korea. The analysis results show that nuclear power in general, generates low external costs. The highest damage costs from the nuclear power plants among the 4 sites in Korea were estimated to be 3.9 mills/MWh, which is about 1/20th of the result for a similar case study conducted in the U.K., implemented through the ExternE project. This difference is largely due to the number of radionuclides included in the study and the amount of released radioactive emissions based on up-to-date information in Korea. In this study, the sensitivities of the major factors for nuclear power plants were also calculated. The analysis indicates that there was around a ${\pm}3%$ damage costs variation to a ${\pm}15%$ change of the reference population density and a ${\pm}1%$ damage cost variation to a $1{\sim}30$ meters change of the effective release height, respectively. These sensitive calculations show that there is only a minor difference when the reference costs are compared.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
• /
• 제16권6호
• /
• pp.511-524
• /
• 2007

Korea has 30 years of experiences in environmental impact assessment (EIA). Although EIA includes sanitation-public health factor, considering health impacts, among 74 unit projects of 17 sections, health impacts haven't been properly considered or have been ignored in many cases. The increasing awareness on the importance of health impacts has triggered this study to seek an optimal introduction scheme of health impact assessment (HIA). The processes of EIA already include screening, scoping, analysis, impact assessment, consultation, document review, decision making and monitoring, in which they would be the essential parts of HIA. In this context, integrating HIA into the existing EIA process could be the most effective way to use the benefits in both legal and procedural processes existed and to avoid the confusion and overlapping since the close relationships between environment and health impacts might be. Furthermore, it is desirable that the existing sanitation-public health factor should be substituted by and extended to environment-health factor with sufficient determinants to properly consider health impacts. When considering the first step of HIA, the prospective and qualitative approach is suitable more than the retrospective and quantitative one due to the lack of database accumulated. Similarly, an approach based on epidemiology and toxicology could analyze the limited evidences and impacts related to human disease, whereas one based on socio-science and psychology could provide the effective means available for predicting how the people and community will act by the change of surroundings. Checklist approach with various and comprehensive health determinants focused on prospective and qualitative methods will be very useful for more convenient and progressive dissemination of HIA. Various checklist approaches of toolkits could be found from HIA documents elsewhere, for example Westminster Toolkit, and they would be helpful to figure out how to develop common procedures and health determinants for checklist, in which the unique characteristics on korean cultural and political context compared to abroad should be carefully considered since checklist would be the most basic and essential part of HIA. After the establishment of checklist and procedural processes, the pilot projects should be conducted. Main purpose of pilot projects is to apparently prove the effectiveness and profitability of HIA. Pilot projects should be implemented to decide the effectiveness and suitability of HIA for future projects, programs and policies, and should be provided as the positive cases that can be achieved through the proper implementation and progress.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
• /
• 제43권2호
• /
• pp.202-211
• /
• 2019

Oceanic islands are biologically important for their unique assemblages of species and high levels of endemism and are sensitive to environmental change because of their isolation and small species source pools. Habitat destruction caused by human landscape development is generally accepted as the main cause of extinction on islands, with exotic species invasion a secondary cause of extinction, especially on tropical islands. However, secondary impacts of human development (e.g., general degradation through resource use and exotic species introduction) are understudied on temperate islands. To determine secondary impacts of human development on the understory vegetation community, 90 field sites on Ulleung Island, South Korea, were sampled during the summer of 2016. Understory vegetation was chosen as it is a proxy for ecosystem health. Diversity and percent cover of introduced, native, and endemic species were tested against proximity to developed areas and trail usage using a model selection approach. Diversity was also tested against percent cover of three naturalized species commonly found in survey plots. The main finding was that distance to development, distance to town, and trail usage have limited negative impacts on the understory vegetation community within best-supported models predicting native and introduced cover and diversity. However, endemic species cover was significantly lower on high usage trails. While there are no apparent locally invasive plant species on the island at the time of this study, percent cover of Robinia pseudoacacia, a naturalized tree species, negatively correlated with plot diversity. These findings indicate that forests on Ulleung Island are not experiencing a noticeable invasion of understory vegetation, and conservation efforts can be best spent preventing future invasions.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
• /
• 제10권2호
• /
• pp.77-83
• /
• 2003

Industrialization has brought great changes in human life. Human sleep patterns have also been much influenced by industrialization and the invention of electricity and the light bulb. Insufficient sleep is a common problem with considerable health, social, and economical impacts on modern society. In this review, we will outline the present state of insufficient sleep in our society, especially catastrophic accidents related with chronic sleep insufficiency. We will discuss the effect of sleep deprivation on human performance by reviewing the literature. We will also emphasize the role of sleep specialists in this issue and highlight the areas in which the principles of sleep medicine can constructively improve public policy and public health.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
• /
• 제28권1호
• /
• pp.22-38
• /
• 2012

Adaptation of climate change is necessary to avoid unexpected impacts of climate change caused by human activities. Vulnerability refers to the degree to which system cannot cope with impacts of climate change, encompassing physical, social and economic aspects. Therefore the quantification of climate change impacts and its vulnerability is needed to identify vulnerable regions and to setup the proper strategies for adaptation. In this study, climate change vulnerability is defined as a function of climate exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. Also, we identified regions vulnerable to ozone due to climate change in Korea using developed proxy variables of vulnerability of regional level. 18 proxy variables are selected through delphi survey to assess vulnerability over human health sector for ozone concentration change due to climate change. Also, we estimate the weighting score of proxy variables from delphi survey. The results showed that the local regions with higher vulnerability index in the sector of human health are Seoul and Daegu, whereas regions with lower one are Jeollanam-do, Gyeonggi-do, Gwangju, Busan, Daejeon, and Gangwon-do. The regions of high level vulnerability are mainly caused by their high ozone exposure. We also assessed future vulnerability according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) A2, A1FI, A1T, A1B, B2, and B1 scenarios in 2020s, 2050s and 2100s. The results showed that vulnerability increased in all scenarios due to increased ozone concentrations. Especially vulnerability index is increased by approximately 2 times in A1FI scenarios in the 2020s. This study could support regionally adjusted adaptation polices and the quantitative background of policy priority as providing the information on the regional vulnerability of ozone due to climate change in Korea.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
• /
• 제33권2호
• /
• pp.113-121
• /
• 2017

In flight particulate matter particularly emissions generated by incomplete combustion processes has become a subject of global concern due to the health problems and environmental impacts associated with them. This has compelled most countries to set standards for coarse and fine particles due to their conspicuous impacts on environment and public health. This contribution therefore explores forest fire emissions and how its particulates affects air quality, damage to vegetation, water bodies and biological functions as architects for lung diseases and other degenerative illnesses such as oxidative stress and aging. Soot was collected from simulated forest fire using a clean glass surface and carefully transferred into amber vials for analysis. Volatile components of soot were collected over 10 mL dichloromethane and analyzed using a QTOF Premier-Water Corp Liquid Chromatography hyphenated to a mass selective detector (MSD), and Gas Chromatograph coupled to a mass spectrometer (GC-MS). To characterize the size and surface morphology of soot, a scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used. The characterization of molecular volatiles from simulated forest fire emissions revealed long chain compounds including octadec-9-enoic acid, octadec-6-enoic acid, cyclotetracosane, cyclotetradecane, and a few aromatic hydrocarbons (benzene and naphthalene). Special classes of organics (dibenzo-p-dioxin and 2H-benzopyran) were also detected as minor products. Dibenzo-p-dioxin for instance in chlorinated form is one of the deadliest environmental organic toxins. The average particulate size of emissions using SEM was found to be $11.51{\pm}4.91{\mu}m$. This study has shown that most of the emissions from simulated forest fire fall within $PM_{10}$ particulate size. The molecular by-products of forest fire and particulate emissions may be toxic to both human and natural ecosystems, and are possible precursors for various respiratory ailments and cancers. The burning of a forest by natural disasters or man-made fires results in the destruction of natural habitats and serious air pollution.