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Tracking Declines in Mercury Exposure in the New York City Adult Population, 2004–2014

Mercury is a toxic metal that can be measured in human blood and urine. Population-based biomonitoring from 2004 guided New York City (NYC) Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) efforts to reduce exposures by educating the public about risks and benefits of fish consumption—a predominant s...

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Autores principales: McKelvey, Wendy, Alex, Byron, Chernov, Claudia, Hore, Paromita, Palmer, Christopher D., Steuerwald, Amy J., Parsons, Patrick J., Perlman, Sharon E.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6286276/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30117056
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11524-018-0269-z
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author McKelvey, Wendy
Alex, Byron
Chernov, Claudia
Hore, Paromita
Palmer, Christopher D.
Steuerwald, Amy J.
Parsons, Patrick J.
Perlman, Sharon E.
author_facet McKelvey, Wendy
Alex, Byron
Chernov, Claudia
Hore, Paromita
Palmer, Christopher D.
Steuerwald, Amy J.
Parsons, Patrick J.
Perlman, Sharon E.
author_sort McKelvey, Wendy
collection PubMed
description Mercury is a toxic metal that can be measured in human blood and urine. Population-based biomonitoring from 2004 guided New York City (NYC) Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) efforts to reduce exposures by educating the public about risks and benefits of fish consumption—a predominant source of exposure in the general population—and removing mercury-containing skin-lightening creams and other consumer products from the marketplace. We describe changes in exposures over the past decade in relation to these local public health actions and in the context of national changes by comparing mercury concentrations measured in blood (1201 specimens) and urine (1408 specimens) from the NYC Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NYC HANES) 2013–2014 with measurements from NYC HANES 2004 and National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) 2003–2004 and 2013–2014. We found that NYC adult blood and urine geometric mean mercury concentrations decreased 46% and 45%, respectively. Adult New Yorkers with blood mercury concentration ≥ 5 μg/L (the New York State reportable level) declined from 24.8% (95% CL = 22.2%, 27.7%) to 12.0% (95% CL = 10.1%, 14.3%). The decline in blood mercury in NYC was greater than the national decline, while the decline in urine mercury was similar. As in 2004, Asian New Yorkers had higher blood mercury concentrations than other racial/ethnic groups. Foreign-born adults of East or Southeast Asian origin had the highest prevalence of reportable levels (29.7%; 95% CL = 21.0%, 40.1%) across sociodemographic groups, and Asians generally were the most frequent fish consumers, eating on average 11 fish meals in the past month compared with 7 among other groups (p < 0.001). Fish consumption patterns were similar over time, and fish continues to be consumed more frequently in NYC than nationwide (24.7% of NYC adults ate fish ten or more times in the past 30 days vs. 14.7% nationally, p < 0.001). The findings are consistent with the hypothesis that blood mercury levels have declined in part because of local and national efforts to promote consumption of lower mercury fish. Local NYC efforts may have accelerated the reduction in exposure. Having “silver-colored fillings” on five or more teeth was associated with the highest 95th percentile for urine mercury (4.06 μg/L; 95% CL = 3.1, 5.9). An estimated 5.5% of the adult population (95% CL = 4.3%, 7.0%) reported using a skin-lightening cream in the past 30 days, but there was little evidence that use was associated with elevated urine mercury in 2013–14. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s11524-018-0269-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-62862762018-12-26 Tracking Declines in Mercury Exposure in the New York City Adult Population, 2004–2014 McKelvey, Wendy Alex, Byron Chernov, Claudia Hore, Paromita Palmer, Christopher D. Steuerwald, Amy J. Parsons, Patrick J. Perlman, Sharon E. J Urban Health Article Mercury is a toxic metal that can be measured in human blood and urine. Population-based biomonitoring from 2004 guided New York City (NYC) Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) efforts to reduce exposures by educating the public about risks and benefits of fish consumption—a predominant source of exposure in the general population—and removing mercury-containing skin-lightening creams and other consumer products from the marketplace. We describe changes in exposures over the past decade in relation to these local public health actions and in the context of national changes by comparing mercury concentrations measured in blood (1201 specimens) and urine (1408 specimens) from the NYC Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NYC HANES) 2013–2014 with measurements from NYC HANES 2004 and National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) 2003–2004 and 2013–2014. We found that NYC adult blood and urine geometric mean mercury concentrations decreased 46% and 45%, respectively. Adult New Yorkers with blood mercury concentration ≥ 5 μg/L (the New York State reportable level) declined from 24.8% (95% CL = 22.2%, 27.7%) to 12.0% (95% CL = 10.1%, 14.3%). The decline in blood mercury in NYC was greater than the national decline, while the decline in urine mercury was similar. As in 2004, Asian New Yorkers had higher blood mercury concentrations than other racial/ethnic groups. Foreign-born adults of East or Southeast Asian origin had the highest prevalence of reportable levels (29.7%; 95% CL = 21.0%, 40.1%) across sociodemographic groups, and Asians generally were the most frequent fish consumers, eating on average 11 fish meals in the past month compared with 7 among other groups (p < 0.001). Fish consumption patterns were similar over time, and fish continues to be consumed more frequently in NYC than nationwide (24.7% of NYC adults ate fish ten or more times in the past 30 days vs. 14.7% nationally, p < 0.001). The findings are consistent with the hypothesis that blood mercury levels have declined in part because of local and national efforts to promote consumption of lower mercury fish. Local NYC efforts may have accelerated the reduction in exposure. Having “silver-colored fillings” on five or more teeth was associated with the highest 95th percentile for urine mercury (4.06 μg/L; 95% CL = 3.1, 5.9). An estimated 5.5% of the adult population (95% CL = 4.3%, 7.0%) reported using a skin-lightening cream in the past 30 days, but there was little evidence that use was associated with elevated urine mercury in 2013–14. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s11524-018-0269-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Springer US 2018-08-16 2018-12 /pmc/articles/PMC6286276/ /pubmed/30117056 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11524-018-0269-z Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
spellingShingle Article
McKelvey, Wendy
Alex, Byron
Chernov, Claudia
Hore, Paromita
Palmer, Christopher D.
Steuerwald, Amy J.
Parsons, Patrick J.
Perlman, Sharon E.
Tracking Declines in Mercury Exposure in the New York City Adult Population, 2004–2014
title Tracking Declines in Mercury Exposure in the New York City Adult Population, 2004–2014
title_full Tracking Declines in Mercury Exposure in the New York City Adult Population, 2004–2014
title_fullStr Tracking Declines in Mercury Exposure in the New York City Adult Population, 2004–2014
title_full_unstemmed Tracking Declines in Mercury Exposure in the New York City Adult Population, 2004–2014
title_short Tracking Declines in Mercury Exposure in the New York City Adult Population, 2004–2014
title_sort tracking declines in mercury exposure in the new york city adult population, 2004–2014
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6286276/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30117056
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11524-018-0269-z
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