Influences of Chemical and Nonchemical Stressors on Health and Quality of Life in Fenceline Communities: A Community-Based Participatory Research Survey in Southeastern Pennsylvania.

Background: Community organizers in Southern Delaware County, PA, expressed a desire to collect comprehensive data on environmental, health, and social conditions in their neighborhoods to inform advocacy efforts to prompt public health action.

Methods: Using a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach, our team of academic and community coinvestigators developed an online community health survey to characterize residents' health concerns and the strengths, burdens, and needs of fenceline communities in Southern Delaware County. We included questions on chemical exposures, sources of pollution, financial stressors, health care, medical conditions, and priorities for policymakers.

Impact of climate change on arsenic concentrations in paddy rice and the associated dietary health risks in Asia: an experimental and modelling study.

Background: Rising global atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO) concentrations and surface temperatures could negatively affect rice yields and nutritional quality; however, their effects on arsenic accumulation in paddy rice have not been assessed concurrently. We aimed to assess the impact of increases in CO and temperature (individually and in combination) on arsenic concentrations in rice, characterise soil properties that might influence arsenic uptake, and model the associated risks of cancer and other health outcomes due to increased arsenic exposure.

Methods: For this modelling study we performed in-situ multi-varietal trials using Free-Air CO Enrichment platforms with and without supplemental temperature to examine the bioaccumulation of arsenic in paddy rice and the underlying biogeochemical mechanisms from 2014 to 2023.

Improving Methodologies for Cumulative Risk Assessment: A Case Study of Noncarcinogenic Health Risks from Volatile Organic Compounds in Fenceline Communities in Southeastern Pennsylvania.

Background: Cumulative risk assessment (CRA) is key to characterizing health risks in fenceline and disadvantaged communities, which face environmental pollution and challenging socioeconomic conditions. Traditional approaches for inclusion of mixtures in CRA are limited and only assess the most sensitive target organ system for each chemical.

Methods: We developed an expanded approach to cumulative risk assessment that considers all known target organ systems associated with a chemical.

Characterizing metals in particulate pollution in communities at the fenceline of heavy industry: combining mobile monitoring and size-resolved filter measurements.

Exposures to metals from industrial emissions can pose important health risks. The Chester-Trainer-Marcus Hook area of southeastern Pennsylvania is home to multiple petrochemical plants, a refinery, and a waste incinerator, most abutting socio-economically disadvantaged residential communities. Existing information on fenceline community exposures is based on monitoring data with low temporal and spatial resolution and EPA models that incorporate industry self-reporting.