Toxic Airs


Book Description

Toxic Airs brings together historians of medicine, environmental historians, historians of science and technology, and interdisciplinary scholars to address atmospheric issues on a spectrum of scales from body to place to planet. The chapters analyze airborne and atmospheric threats posed to humans, and contributors demonstrate how conceptions of toxicity have evolved and how humans have both created and mitigated toxins in the air. Specific topics discussed include medieval beliefs in the pestilent breath of witches, malarial theory in India, domestic and military use of tear gas, Gulf War Syndrome, Los Angeles smog, automotive emissions control, the epidemiological effects of air pollution, transboundary air pollution, ozone depletion, the contributions of contemporary artists to climate awareness, and the toxic history of carbon "die"-oxide. Overall, the essays provide a wide-ranging historical study of interest to students and scholars of many disciplines.




Air Monitoring for Toxic Exposures


Book Description

Air Monitoring for Toxic Exposures: An Integrated Approach, Second Edition explains the procedures for evaluating potentially harmful exposures to people from hazardous materials, including chemicals, radon, and bioaerosols. The author provides practical information on how to perform air sampling, collect biological and bulk samples, evaluate dermal exposures, and determine the advantages and limitations of a given method.




WHO Guidelines for Indoor Air Quality


Book Description

This book presents WHO guidelines for the protection of public health from risks due to a number of chemicals commonly present in indoor air. The substances considered in this review, i.e. benzene, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, naphthalene, nitrogen dioxide, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (especially benzo[a]pyrene), radon, trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene, have indoor sources, are known in respect of their hazardousness to health and are often found indoors in concentrations of health concern. The guidelines are targeted at public health professionals involved in preventing health risks of environmental exposures, as well as specialists and authorities involved in the design and use of buildings, indoor materials and products. They provide a scientific basis for legally enforceable standards.




Particles in the Air


Book Description

The book covers the three largest sources of particulate matter pollution in five chapters. These sources constitute three of the top ten public health problems in the world today and far outstrip any other environmental health threats in terms of health impact. The book begins with indoor solid fuel combustion for cooking in lower income countries and tells the story of how this problem was identified and recent efforts to eliminate it. The book next looks at tobacco smoking and second hand smoke, again reviewing the history of how these problems were identified scientifically and the fierce industry push back against the science. The last two chapters cover ambient particulate matter in the outdoor air. They address fine and ultrafine particles, describing the pioneering work on fine PM, the subsequent industry attacks on the scientists and then the emerging interest and concern about ultrafine particles, an area of research in which the author has participated. This book is geared towards non-scientists, including high school and college students.




The Inside Story


Book Description




Death in the Air


Book Description

A real-life thriller in the vein of The Devil in the White City, Kate Winkler Dawson's debut Death in the Air is a gripping, historical narrative of a serial killer, an environmental disaster, and an iconic city struggling to regain its footing. London was still recovering from the devastation of World War II when another disaster hit: for five long days in December 1952, a killer smog held the city firmly in its grip and refused to let go. Day became night, mass transit ground to a halt, criminals roamed the streets, and some 12,000 people died from the poisonous air. But in the chaotic aftermath, another killer was stalking the streets, using the fog as a cloak for his crimes. All across London, women were going missing--poor women, forgotten women. Their disappearances caused little alarm, but each of them had one thing in common: they had the misfortune of meeting a quiet, unassuming man, John Reginald Christie, who invited them back to his decrepit Notting Hill flat during that dark winter. They never left. The eventual arrest of the "Beast of Rillington Place" caused a media frenzy: were there more bodies buried in the walls, under the floorboards, in the back garden of this house of horrors? Was it the fog that had caused Christie to suddenly snap? And what role had he played in the notorious double murder that had happened in that same apartment building not three years before--a murder for which another, possibly innocent, man was sent to the gallows? The Great Smog of 1952 remains the deadliest air pollution disaster in world history, and John Reginald Christie is still one of the most unfathomable serial killers of modern times. Journalist Kate Winkler Dawson braids these strands together into a taut, compulsively readable true crime thriller about a man who changed the fate of the death penalty in the UK, and an environmental catastrophe with implications that still echo today.




Outdoor Air Pollution


Book Description

"This publication represents the views and expert opinions of an IARC Working Group on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risk to Humans, which met in Lyon, 8-15 October 2013."




Air Pollution Calculations


Book Description

Air Pollution Calculations introduces the equations and formulae that are most important to air pollution, but goes a step further. Most texts lack examples of how these equations and formulae apply to the quantification of real-world scenarios and conditions. The ample example calculations apply to current air quality problems, including emission inventories, risk estimations, biogeochemical cycling assessments, and efficiencies in air pollution control technologies. In addition, the book explains thermodynamics and fluid dynamics in step-by-step and understandable calculations using air quality and multimedia modeling, reliability engineering and engineering economics using practical examples likely to be encountered by scientists, engineers, managers and decision makers. The book touches on the environmental variables, constraints and drivers that can influence pollutant mass, volume and concentrations, which in turn determine toxicity and adverse outcomes caused by air pollution. How the pollutants form, move, partition, transform and find their fate are explained using the entire range of atmospheric phenomena. The control, prevention and mitigation of air pollution are explained based on physical, chemical and biological principles which is crucial to science-based policy and decision-making. Users will find this to be a comprehensive, single resource that will help them understand air pollution, quantify existing data, and help those whose work is impacted by air pollution. - Explains air pollution in a comprehensive manner, enabling readers to understand how to measure and assess risks to human populations and ecosystems actually or potentially exposed to air pollutants - Covers air pollution from a multivariate, systems approach, bringing in atmospheric processes, health impacts, environmental impacts, controls and prevention - Facilitates an understanding of broad factors, like climate and transport, that influence patterns and change in pollutant concentrations, both spatially and over time




Toxic Politics


Book Description

China's deepening health crisis reveals the fragility of the party-state and undercuts China's ability to project influence internationally.




Preterm Birth


Book Description

The increasing prevalence of preterm birth in the United States is a complex public health problem that requires multifaceted solutions. Preterm birth is a cluster of problems with a set of overlapping factors of influence. Its causes may include individual-level behavioral and psychosocial factors, sociodemographic and neighborhood characteristics, environmental exposure, medical conditions, infertility treatments, and biological factors. Many of these factors co-occur, particularly in those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged or who are members of racial and ethnic minority groups. While advances in perinatal and neonatal care have improved survival for preterm infants, those infants who do survive have a greater risk than infants born at term for developmental disabilities, health problems, and poor growth. The birth of a preterm infant can also bring considerable emotional and economic costs to families and have implications for public-sector services, such as health insurance, educational, and other social support systems. Preterm Birth assesses the problem with respect to both its causes and outcomes. This book addresses the need for research involving clinical, basic, behavioral, and social science disciplines. By defining and addressing the health and economic consequences of premature birth, this book will be of particular interest to health care professionals, public health officials, policy makers, professional associations and clinical, basic, behavioral, and social science researchers.