Heavy metals are considered to seriously threatens food safety and children’s health. Children are particularly vulnerable to environmental threats because they respond differently to stressors than ...adults, largely due to their immature immune systems. Thus, highly sensitive and specific technology is urgently required to detect toxic heavy metals in food rapidly. This review aims to present electrochemical (bio)sensors for detecting heavy metals, especially in focusing on nickel, lead, cadmium, mercury, arsenic, and aluminum, with the various electrode modification materials and provide a broad overview of heavy metals toxicosis as a background for sustained investigations of the toxicology these compounds of children health importance.
Sparse research exists on predictors of element concentrations measured in deciduous teeth.
To estimate associations between maternal/child characteristics, elements measured in home tap water during ...pregnancy and element concentrations in the dentin of shed deciduous teeth.
Our analysis included 152 pregnant person-infant dyads followed from the second trimester through the end of the first postnatal year from the New Hampshire Birth Cohort Study. During pregnancy and early infancy, we collected dietary and sociodemographic information via surveys, measured elements in home tap water, and later collected naturally exfoliated teeth from child participants. We measured longitudinal deposition of elements in dentin using LA-ICP-MS. Multivariable linear mixed models were used to estimate associations between predictors and dentin element concentrations.
We measured 12 elements in dentin including those previously reported (Ba, Mn, Pb, Sr, Zn) and less frequently reported (Al, As, Cd, Cu, Hg, Li, and W). A doubling of Pb or Sr concentrations in water was associated with higher dentin Pb or Sr respectively in prenatally formed 9% (95%CI: 3%, 15%); 3% (1%, 6%) and postnatally formed 10% (2%, 19%); 6% (2%, 10%) dentin. Formula feeding from birth to 6 weeks or 6 weeks to 4 months was associated with higher element concentrations in postnatal dentin within the given time period as compared to exclusive human milk feeding: Sr: 6 weeks: 61% (36%, 90%) and 4 months: 85% (54%, 121%); Ba: 6 weeks: 35% (3.3%, 77%) and 4 months: 42% (10%, 83%); and Li: 6 weeks: 61% (33%, 95%) and 4 months: 58% (31%, 90%).
These findings offer insights into predictors of dentin elements and potential confounders in exposure-health outcome relationships during critical developmental periods.
•Sparse research exists on predictors of element concentrations in deciduous teeth.•We measured elements in teeth from a prospective rural pregnancy cohort.•Water lead (Pb) and strontium (Sr) were predictors of Pb and Sr in teeth.•Any formula use associated with higher barium, lithium and Sr in postnatal dentin.
Mindful parenting teaches parents to focus awareness on their thoughts, feelings and behaviours, as well as pay attention to their children in an intentional, present-centered and non-judgmental ...manner. Mindfulness appears to improve the quality of parenting and the parent-child relationship, as well as enhance children's and parents' levels of resilience and psychological functioning. However, an understanding of the processes and techniques underpinning effective mindful parenting remains constrained due to methodological limitations. These limitations include an over reliance on non-experimental designs, uncontrolled studies, self-report assessments, small sample sizes mostly comprising mothers, and uncertainty with regards to the definitions and meanings of certain concepts and protocols for mindful parenting interventions. In order to examine the effectiveness of mindful parenting interventions, standards need to be established which define the meaning of mindful parenting and identify the correlates, determinants and mechanisms of change in mindful parenting over time, in order to determine modifiable factors so that interventions can be appropriately targeted to vulnerable populations. This paper discusses some of the latest research developments in mindful parenting, provides recommendations for effective mindfulness practice from a parenting context and discusses key future challenges affecting this area of mindfulness research and practice.
The article aims to examine the meanings that Polish children (age 8-11) attribute to computers, television, or smartphones, in the context of health. Basing on childhood studies literature and the ...concept of healthscape I show how children include electronic media, as material and symbolic objects, in health discourses. In children's worldviews these objects meet with healthy food and fit culture, as elements of healthscapes. The healthscape infrastructure allows children to simultaneously adopt different viewpoints and moral orders in the field of health. It could seem that the 'perfect' child would be a self-controlling child who never watches television or plays computer games, and who eats only healthy food. But this expectation contradicts another one, according to which children should be wild, free, and disobedient. Children need to navigate between contradictory viewpoints, and they need to find balance and a way to create their own identity therein.
Lead (Pb) and cadmium (Cd) are toxic metals that exist ubiquitously in the environment. Children in polluted areas are particularly vulnerable to metal exposure, where clinical signs and symptoms ...could be nonspecific. Absorbed metals are excreted primarily in urine and reflect exposure from all sources. We analyzed Pb and Cd concentrations in blood, feces and urine of children from polluted townships near a lead-zinc mine in Kabwe, Zambia, to determine concurrent childhood exposure to the metals. Moreover, the study determined the Pb and Cd relationships among urine, feces and blood as well as accessed the potential of urine and fecal analysis for biomonitoring of Pb and Cd exposure in children. Fecal Pb (up to 2252 mg/kg, dry weight) and urine Pb (up to 2914 μg/L) were extremely high. Concentrations of Cd in blood (Cd-B) of up to 7.7 μg/L, fecal (up to 4.49 mg/kg, dry weight) and urine (up to 18.1 μg/L) samples were elevated. metal levels were higher in younger children (0–3 years old) than older children (4–7). Positive correlations were recorded for Pb and Cd among blood, urine and fecal samples whereas negative correlations were recorded with age. These findings indicate children are exposed to both metals at their current home environment. Moreover, urine and feces could be useful for biomonitoring of metals due to their strong relationships with blood levels. There is need to conduct a clinical evaluation of the affected children to fully appreciate the health impact of these metal exposure.
•We measured lead and cadmium excretion levels in children near a Pb-Zn mine in Zambia.•Fecal and urine Pb levels up to 2252 mg/kg and 2914 μg/L, respectively, were very high.•Cd in fecal (up to 4.49 mg/kg) and urine (up to 18.1 μg/L) samples were elevated.•Positive correlations were observed between fecal and urinary levels of Pb and Cd.•Children living near the Pb-Zn mine are at serious risks of Pb and Cd poisoning.
The Brazilian Unified Health System was created in the late 1980s to ensure free universal access to health care and was funded by taxes and social contributions. The persistent inequity in access to ...health services in favour of richer individuals in Brazil has been observed in the literature. However, to the best of our knowledge, no measurement of inequality in medicine use or private health insurance (PHI) among children has been performed with longitudinal data. This paper uses inequality indices and their decompositions to analyse the income-related inequalities/inequities in children's health care in the city of Pelotas, Brazil, using longitudinal data following children from 12 to 72 months of age. Our sample with data in all waves has between 1877 and 2638 children (varying according to outcome). We seek to answer three questions: i) How does the inequality/inequity in health care evolve as children grow up? ii) What are the main factors associated with inequality in children's health care? iii) How much of the change in inequality/inequity is explained by mobility in children's health care and income mobility? We found that inequities in health care have their beginnings in early childhood but that there was a reduction in inequity at 72 months of age. Ownership of children's PHI was associated with greater pro-rich inequity in health care. The reduction in inequality/inequity was linked to mobility in the sense that initially poorer children had greater gains in health care (a greater increase in PHI ownership and a lower reduction in medicine use). Despite this improvement among the poorest, apparently, the Brazilian public health service seems to fail to ensure equity in health care use among children, with possible long-term consequences on inequalities in health.
•The inequities in health care have their beginnings even in early childhood.•Income and mother's education have a strong contribution in the inequalities.•Private health insurance has strong contribution in inequalities of medicine use.•There was reduction in inequity for children's health care in Pelotas/Brazil.•This improvement for poorest children occurred when they reached 72 months.
Past studies support the hypothesis that the prenatal period influences childhood growth. However, few studies explore the joint effects of exposures that occur simultaneously during pregnancy. To ...explore the feasibility of using mixtures methods with neighborhood-level environmental exposures, we assessed the effects of multiple prenatal exposures on body mass index (BMI) from birth to age 24 months. We used data from two cohorts: Healthy Start (n = 977) and Maternal and Developmental Risks from Environmental and Social Stressors (MADRES; n = 303). BMI was measured at delivery and 6, 12, and 24 months and standardized as z-scores. We included variables for air pollutants, built and natural environments, food access, and neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES). We used two complementary statistical approaches: single-exposure linear regression and quantile-based g-computation. Models were fit separately for each cohort and time point and were adjusted for relevant covariates. Single-exposure models identified negative associations between NO2 and distance to parks and positive associations between low neighborhood SES and BMI z-scores for Healthy Start participants; for MADRES participants, we observed negative associations between O3 and distance to parks and BMI z-scores. G-computations models produced comparable results for each cohort: higher exposures were generally associated with lower BMI, although results were not significant. Results from the g-computation models, which do not require a priori knowledge of the direction of associations, indicated that the direction of associations between mixture components and BMI varied by cohort and time point. Our study highlights challenges in assessing mixtures effects at the neighborhood level and in harmonizing exposure data across cohorts. For example, geospatial data of neighborhood-level exposures may not fully capture the qualities that might influence health behavior. Studies aiming to harmonize geospatial data from different geographical regions should consider contextual factors when operationalizing exposure variables.
•We assessed the effects of a mixture of prenatal environmental exposures on early childhood BMI.•Exposures were assessed at the neighborhood level during pregnancy.•We used quantile g-computation to models the joint effect of neighborhood exposures.•Air pollutants and socioeconomic status were associated with lower BMI in single-pollutant models.•The overall mixture was not associated with BMI at any time point.
Air pollution addresses short-term health effects on morbidity, especially for children. Assessing the impacts of air pollution on elementary students is critical for developing preparedness response ...strategies for this sensitive group. In the 2016–17 academic year, up to 687,748 groups of illness-related absence records and the information on whether the absentee had gone to a hospital or not were collected from 2564 elementary schools across Jiangsu Province China. We explored the associations between air pollution and illness-related records using a time-stratified case-crossover analysis with distributed lag non-linear design. An increase of 10 μg/m3 in the current-day concentration of PM2.5 and O3 was positively associated with illness-related absenteeism overall. The excess risk of absenteeism was 4.52 % (95%CI 4.37–4.67 %) for PM2.5 and 0.25 % (95%CI 0.01–0.36 %) for O3. The risk associated with O3 was boosted for the frequent absentees who tended to have basic diseases or were more vulnerable to infectious diseases. Students in 43.1 % illness-related absenteeism, mainly due to highly infectious diseases, only received home nursing without going to a hospital. The increase in the number of illness cases associated with PM2.5 and O3 estimated based on the illness-related absence data was 41.5 % and 18.6 % higher than that evaluated based on hospital visit records. Such underestimations persisted in sensitivity analyses and persisted in subgroups classified by gender or grade. Together, the performance of illness-related absence records far outweighed that of hospital visit data regarding the thorough evaluation of air pollution-related illness cases for elementary students. Improvement in air quality and home health care education are warranted as well for the health benefits of children.
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•Up to 43 % absentees selected home nursing without going to a hospital.•Using hospital visit record undervalued 18–42 % pollution-related illness cases.•PM2.5 exposure was related to increased illness-related absence for all subgroups.•O3 exposure was associated with high absence risk for the less unhealthy group.
The impact of social, racial, and economic inequities on health and surgical outcomes for children is poorly described.
A systematic review using search terms related to disparities in care of ...pediatric appendicitis identified 20 titles and narrowed to 11 full texts. Nine retrospective studies were analyzed, representing 350,408 cases treated across the United States from 1983 to 2010. Outcomes included length of stay (LOS), appendiceal perforation rate (AP), laparoscopic versus open approach, and rate of misdiagnosis.
The most frequently reported outcomes were LOS (six of nine studies) and AP (six of nine studies). AP was higher for young children (48% for <6 versus 25% for >10), those in rural settings (42% versus 26% in urban settings), and patients receiving care at children's hospitals (35% versus 22% at nonchildren's hospitals). Longer LOS was associated with young age in three studies (2-5 d for age <10 y versus 1-3 d for age >11 y), race in four studies (1.5-3 d for African American children versus 1-2 d for other races), and lower family income in two studies (2-4 d versus 1-3 d for highest income). Inequitable use of laparoscopy, time to surgery, and rates of misdiagnosis were also reported to be associated with age and race.
Although limited, the existing literature suggests that social, racial, and economic inequalities impact management and outcomes in pediatric appendicitis. More studies are needed to better describe and mitigate disparities in the surgical care of children.
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