Feature Article

Indoor air pollutants (IAPs) cause multiple health impacts. Prioritizing mitigation options that differentially affect individual pollutants and comparing IAPs with other environmental health hazards require a common metric of harm. The objective was to demonstrate a methodology to quantify and compare health impacts from IAPs. The methodology is needed to assess population health impacts of large-scale initiatives—including energy efficiency upgrades and ventilation standards—that affect indoor air quality (IAQ).

Public health policies such as tobacco control, air pollution reduction, and hazardous waste remediation may have reduced cadmium exposure among U.S. adults. However, trends in urine cadmium, a marker of cumulative cadmium exposure, have not been evaluated. The authors estimated the trends in urine cadmium concentrations in U.S. adults using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) from 1988 to 2008.

Measuring the oxidative potential of airborne particulate matter (PM) may provide a more health-based exposure measure by integrating various biologically relevant properties of PM into a single predictor of biological activity. The authors aimed to assess the contrast in oxidative potential of PM collected at major urban streets and background locations, the associaton of oxidative potential with other PM characteristics, and the oxidative potential in different PM size fractions.

As a result of Hurricane Katrina, > 100,000 homes were destroyed or damaged and a significant amount of sediment was deposited throughout the city of New Orleans, Louisiana. Researchers have identified the potential for increased lead hazards from environmental lead contamination of soils. The authors assessed the distribution of residential soil and dust lead 2 years poststorm and compared soil lead before and after the storm.

Climate change is expected to have a range of health impacts, some of which are already apparent. Public health adaptation is imperative, but there has been little discussion of how to increase adaptive capacity and resilience in public health systems. The authors explored possible explanations for the lack of work on adaptive capacity, outline climate–health challenges that may lie outside public health’s coping range, and consider changes in practice that could increase public health’s adaptive capacity.

Exposure to high concentrations of persistent organochlorines may cause fetal toxicity, but the evidence at low exposure levels is limited. Large studies with substantial exposure contrasts and appropriate exposure assessment are warranted.

The BP oil spill of 2010 resulted in contamination of one of the most productive fisheries in the United States by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). PAHs, which can accumulate in seafood, are known carcinogens and developmental toxicants. In response to the oil spill, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) developed risk criteria and established thresholds for allowable levels [levels of concern (LOCs)] of PAH contaminants in Gulf Coast seafood.

Obesity has risen steadily in the United States over the past 150 years, with a marked uptick in recent decades. In the United States today more than 35% of adults and nearly 17% of children aged 2–19 years are obese. Obesity plagues people not just in the United States but worldwide, including, increasingly, developing countries. Even animals—pets, laboratory animals, and urban rats—have experienced increases in average body weight over the past several decades, trends not necessarily explained by diet and exercise. In the words of Robert H.