An integrated study of health, environmental and socioeconomic indicators in a mining-impacted community exposed to metal enrichment.
The occurrence of toxic metals and metalloids associated with mine tailings is a serious public health concern for communities living in mining areas. This work explores the relationship between metal occurrence (e.g., spatial distribution in street dusts), human health indicators (e.g., metals in urine samples, lifestyle and self-reported diseases) and socioeconomic status (SES) using Chañaral city (in northern Chile) as study site, where a copper mine tailing was disposed in the periurban area. This study model may shed light on the development of environmental and health surveillance plans on arid cities where legacy mining is a sustainability challenge. High concentrations of metals were found in street dust, with arsenic and copper concentrations of 24 ± 13 and 607 ± 911 mg/kg, respectively. The arsenic concentration in street dust correlated with distance to the mine tailing (r = - 0.32, p-value = 0.009), suggesting that arsenic is dispersed from this source toward the city. Despite these high environmental concentrations, urinary levels of metals were low, while 90% of the population had concentrations of inorganic arsenic and its metabolites in urine below 33.2 µg/L, copper was detected in few urine samples (< 6%). Our results detected statistically significant differences in environmental exposures across SES, but, surprisingly, there was no significant correlation between urinary levels of metals and SES. Despite this, future assessment and control strategies in follow-up research or surveillance programs should consider environmental and urinary concentrations and SES as indicators of environmental exposure to metals in mining communities.
['Moya|Pablo M|PM|', 'Arce|Guillermo J|GJ|', 'Leiva|Cinthya|C|', 'Vega|Alejandra S|AS|', 'Gutiérrez|Santiago|S|', 'Adaros|Héctor|H|', 'Muñoz|Luis|L|', 'Pastén|Pablo A|PA|', 'Cortés|Sandra|S|']
D000293:Adolescent D000328:Adult D000368:Aged D000393:Air Pollutants D001151:Arsenic D002677:Chile D002947:Cities D003300:Copper D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies D004391:Dust D004781:Environmental Exposure D004782:Environmental Health D004784:Environmental Monitoring D005260:Female D006801:Humans D008297:Male D058955:Metalloids D008670:Metals D008875:Middle Aged D008906:Mining D012959:Socioeconomic Factors D055815:Young Adult
Metals Mine tailings Street dust Urine Chile Human exposure