 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
|
| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Jerome Nriagu, PhD1, Mary Johnson, MSc1, Adnan Hammad, PhD2, Kathryn Savoie, PhD2, and Hikmet Jamil, MD PhD2. (1) Environmental Health Sciences, University of Michigan, School of Public Health, 109 Oabservatory Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, 734-936-0706, jnriagu@umich.edu, (2) Community Health & Research Center, ACCESS, 6450 Maple Street, Dearborn, MI 48126
Our environmental risk index (ERI) is based on a scoring scheme for indoor environmental risk factors and is suitable for identifying high-risk households for intervention. The relative scores for both risk (positive) and protective (negative) factors are based on presumed strength of their association with asthma and other respiratory symptoms. Scores for individual variables are summed to obtain the ERI for each household. We have estimated the ERI's for 600 Arab American households in metro Detroit, MI and related the scores to the prevalence and severity of 66 self-reported symptoms with major environmental risk components. Significant correlations (p < 0.05) were found between the ERI scores and about 50% of chronic morbidities including hearing loss, less sense of smell, chest pain, stiffness in muscles or joints, difficulty concentrating, difficulty making decisions, dizziness, fainting, unsteadiness on feet/loses balance easily, difficulty with complex tasks, restlessness, agitation, irritability, panic/anxiety or fear, trouble staying asleep, fever/chills, nausea, bloating of the stomach, constipation, diarrhea, acne/pimples, neck/face rash, burning eyes, sore throat, depressed mood, and vomiting. The ERI score was also predictive of the severity of symptom for many disease conditions including sneezing/runny, or congested nose without a cold, bad or metallic taste in mouth, difficulty making decisions, trouble finding the right words, trouble getting to sleep, dizziness, dull or groggy feeling, loss of appetite, trouble staying asleep, constipation, diarrhea, constant feeling of need to defecate. The good predictive capability from the study suggests that the ERI score represents a reasonable surrogate of household exposure risk.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Indoor Environment, Environmental Exposures
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.