Category 5
Environmental Health, Occupational Health, Environmental Justice and Climate Change

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has had an enormous impact on education globally, forcing the teaching community to think outside the box and create innovative educational plans to benefit students sitting at home.

Goal: The primary goals of the internship program are to: 1) train future leaders in sustainable water reuse; 2) impart skills in systems thinking; and 3) provide research training and career development, enhancing the potential of our interns to go on to graduate studies.

Objectives: Some of the tasks for this summer interns besides the interns individual projects were Professional Development Webinars, Professional Writing Workshop, Scientific Journal Club and a final presentation

Approach/Methods: Here, we narrate how the undergraduate, laboratory-based Summer Internship Program of our CONSERVE Center of Excellence, which heavily focuses on engaging women and underrepresented minorities in STEM programming, took a turn from an in-person research experience to a fully virtual experience. We share our challenges and how we overcame them. Additionally, we provide a description of our virtual internship professional development curriculum, as well as the creative research projects that our seven interns were able to achieve in an 8-week long virtual internship, including projects focused on the microbiological water quality of recycled irrigation water; social media promotion, enhancement and marketing of online educational resources focused on water, microbial contamination and food crop irrigation; decision support systems for using recycled water in agricultural settings; and the effectiveness of zero-valent iron sand filtration in improving agricultural water quality, to name a few.

Results: Upon evaluating our internship program, we observed that more than 80% of our interns were either very satisfied or satisfied with the overall virtual internship experience.

Importance to Public Health: Through this experience, both the educators and the interns learned that although a virtual laboratory internship cannot completely replace in-person learning, it can still result in a very meaningful educational experience.

Background: Sources of Salmonella infection (salmonellosis) can vary by state and include animal and plant-based foods, as well as environmental reservoirs. Several studies have recognized the importance of increased ambient temperature and precipitation in the spread and persistence of Salmonella in the soil and food. However, the impact of extreme weather events on Salmonella infection rates among the most prevalent serovars, has not been fully evaluated across distinct U.S. regions.

Goal: The goal of this study was to examine the association between extreme weather events and the incidence of salmonellosis among the most prevalent serovars in seven Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) sites across the United States.

Objectives: Specifically, we hoped to ascertain which U.S. regions were positively associated with increased levels of salmonellosis, and if infection rates with four of the most abundant and persistent serovars were homogenously associated with extreme rainfall and/or heat events.

Approach/Methods:Using data from FoodNet and the National Climatic Data Center, we identified the 95th percentile thresholds for extreme heat and precipitation events and evaluated their association with salmonellosis rates.

Results: We observed a significant positive association between extreme heat exposure and increased S. Newport infections in Maryland (Incidence Rate Ratio (IRR): 1.07, 95% Confidence Interval (CI): 1.01, 1.14), and Tennessee (IRR: 1.06, 95% CI: 1.04, 1.09). We also detected a significant positive association between extreme precipitation events and S. Javiana infections in Connecticut (IRR: 1.22, 95% CI: 1.10, 1.35), and Georgia (IRR: 1.05, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.08); and S. Newport infections in Maryland (% (IRR: 1.11, 95% CI: 1.04-1.18). Our findings suggest that rates of infection with Salmonella serovars that persist in environmental or plant-based reservoirs, such as S. Javiana and S. Newport, appear to be of particular significance with increased heat and rainfall events.

Importance to Public Health:Given that extreme heat and precipitation events are predicted to increase over time, this study provides valuable insights into the association between climate change and disease reservoirs, as well as the increasing risk of Salmonella infections across the country. This study can also help inform the development of more effective prevention strategies for salmonellosis at a state level.

Background: Children exposed to air pollution have been found to perform poorly on mathematical assessments relative to their unexposed peers. Strong performance on childhood academic assessments has been found to associate with future academic and professional success.

Goal: The goal of the study is to understand whether low-cost personal air quality monitors can capture children’s experience of air pollution.

Objectives: To assess whether children’s short-term exposure to PM2.5, PM10, VOCs, and NO2 associates with their performance on mathematics and executive function (EF) assessments.

Approach/Methods:Families with a child between 7 and 9 years old were recruited through distributing fliers in the community and networks of previous College of Education study volunteers. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to protect our participants, we adjusted our study to accommodate the contactless drop-off and pick-up of equipment while remaining in email contact with participants. Each participating family completed a baseline study composed of demographic questions and those about home characteristics, so we could better understand their home environments. Each participating child was given a Flow air quality monitor to wear for three days. The monitor, worn on a lanyard, was paired with a Samsung tablet to enable the collection of data. Children’s activities for their time wearing the monitor were recorded in a log. For the majority of participants, both this and the baseline survey were completed on the tablet to which the Flow air quality monitor was paired. On the final day of monitoring, children took the mathematics and EF assessments on the tablet.

Results: Our first round of data collection has been completed (n=30) and we are presently reviewing our preliminary findings. The second round of data collection from the same families will occur in May/June 2021, which allows us to evaluate the seasonal dimension of air pollution exposure and the differences in exposures as the children return to in-person instruction as COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.

Importance to Public Health:The long-term aim of this work is the characterization of how environmental pollutants affect the cognitive and neural processes essential to early education. This characterization will inform the creation of early interventions for remediation of the cognitive effects of exposure to air pollution.

Background: Typical thermoregulatory responses among healthy individuals include reduced blood pressure and perspiration. Individuals living with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) are susceptible to physiological fluctuations caused by environmental temperature changes that may increase health complications.

Goal: We investigated whether systolic blood pressure before dialysis treatment (preSBP) and interdialytic weight gain change (IDWG) can independently mediate the association between ambient temperature and hospital admissions and between mortality outcomes among ESRD patients.

Objectives: Identify probable mechanistic pathways between air temperature and mortality and hospitalization risks through single and combined pathway models using mediation analysis

Approach/Methods:The study population consisted of ESRD patients in Philadelphia County, PA, from 2011 to 2019 (n=1981). Within a time-to-event framework, we estimated the association between daily maximum dry-bulb temperature (TMAX) and, in separate models, all-cause hospital admissions (ACHA) and all-cause mortality (ACM) outcomes during warmer calendar months. The study employed the difference (c-c') method to decompose total effect models for ACHA and ACM using preSBP and IDWG as time-dependent mediators and then applied proportion mediated (PM) using indirect effects. Covariate adjustments for total and direct effect models include age, race/ethnicity, blood pressure medication use, treatment location, preSBP, and IDWG.

Results: Based on Lag 2- Lag 1 temporal ordering, 1°C TMAX increase in was associated with an increased hazard of ACHA by 7.6% (adjusted hazard ratio (HR), 1.076; 95% confidence interval, 1.070-1.082) and ACM 7.5% (adjusted HR, 1.075, 1.050-1.100). Mediation analysis for hospital admission events identified significant indirect effects for all three studied pathways and significant indirect effects for IDWG and conjoined preSBP + IDWG pathways for mortality. The mechanistic path for IDWG, independent of preSBP, demonstrated inconsistent mediation in ACHA (-2.67%) and ACM (-6.26%). PM estimates from the conjoined pathway suggest that it is likely not a candidate path in combined pathway models.

Importance to Public Health:This work has provided a step toward understanding physiological linkages that may explain or suppress temperature-driven hospital admissions and mortality risks. These findings could help discern candidate heat-adaptation interventions.

Background: Our changing climate, escalating water demands and depletion of groundwater are immediate challenges calling for the urgent need to explore and adopt safe agricultural water reuse approaches to sustain food production globally. However, water sources that are increasingly used in agricultural water reuse scenarios (including treated wastewater, greywater, brackish water, untreated surface water, return flows and other recycled water sources) have been understudied with regard to overall microbiological quality.

Goal: The overall goal of our study is to provide a comprehensive characterization of the bacterial communities that might be present in the non-traditional water sources that are used for food crop irrigation.

Objectives: To address this knowledge gap, our team applied a 16S rRNA gene sequencing approach to comprehensively evaluate the microbiological quality of diverse water sources (reclaimed water, nontidal freshwater, tidal brackish water, untreated pond water and preprocessing plant water) from 12 sites in the Mid-Atlantic United States.

Approach/Methods:A total of 338 water samples (1L) collected bi- weekly over a two-year period were filtered and DNA-extracted, the resulting DNA was amplified via polymerase chain reaction targeting the 16S rRNA gene, and sequenced on Illumina HiSeq 2500 300-bp PE. Sequencing data were analyzed using QIIME and multiple R packages.

Results: Overall, 129,276 species-level operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were obtained from a total of 27,465,017 sequences. Alpha diversity (Observed and Shannon indices) analyses showed significant (ANOVA P<0.001) differences between bacterial communities across sites and water types. Beta diversity analyses comparing samples using Bray-Curtis dissimilarity also identified significant (ANOSIM P<0.001) differences across sites and water types. More than 65% of the bacterial community variation was due to sites, while 60% of the variation was explained by water type and ~10% by season. We were also able to detect some pathogenic bacterial species which have been known to cause human/animal diseases: Propionibcaterium acnes, Pseudomonas alcaligenes, Arcobacter cryaerophilus, Clostridium butyricum, Enterobacter cloacae, Campylobacter curvus, Prevotella melaninogenica, Rothia mucilaginosa, Woronichinia naegeliana, and Flavobacterium succinicans.

Importance to Public Health:Our results suggest that recycled water sources will likely require treatment to remove diverse bacterial communities (that could pose potential risks to food safety) before these water sources are used to irrigate food crops. Overall, our data can be applied in the development of mitigation strategies to ensure resilient agricultural communities and sustainable food production in the face of ongoing climate change.