Cargando…

Protecting Children from Toxic Waste: Data-Usability Evaluation Can Deter Flawed Cleanup

Nearly 25 percent of US children live within 2 km of toxic-waste sites, most of which are in urban areas. They face higher rates of cancer than adults, partly because the dominant contaminants at most US hazardous-waste sites include genotoxic carcinogens, like trichloroethylene, that are much more...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Shrader-Frechette, Kristin, Biondo, Andrew M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7014154/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31936349
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17020424
_version_ 1783496564181827584
author Shrader-Frechette, Kristin
Biondo, Andrew M.
author_facet Shrader-Frechette, Kristin
Biondo, Andrew M.
author_sort Shrader-Frechette, Kristin
collection PubMed
description Nearly 25 percent of US children live within 2 km of toxic-waste sites, most of which are in urban areas. They face higher rates of cancer than adults, partly because the dominant contaminants at most US hazardous-waste sites include genotoxic carcinogens, like trichloroethylene, that are much more harmful to children. The purpose of this article is to help protect the public, especially children, from these threats and to improve toxics-remediation by beginning to test our hypothesis: If site-remediation assessments fail data-usability evaluation (DUE), they likely compromise later cleanups and public health, especially children’s health. To begin hypothesis-testing, we perform a focused DUE for an unremediated, Pasadena, California toxic site. Our DUE methods are (a) comparing project-specific, remediation-assessment data with the remediation-assessment conceptual site model (CSM), in order to identify data gaps, and (b) using data-gap directionality to assess possible determinate bias (whether reported toxics risks are lower/higher than true values). Our results reveal (1) major CSM data gaps, particularly regarding Pasadena-toxic-site risks to children; (2) determinate bias, namely, risk underestimation; thus (3) likely inadequate remediation. Our discussion shows that if these results are generalizable, requiring routine, independent, DUEs might deter flawed toxic-site assessment/cleanup and resulting health threats, especially to children.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7014154
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2020
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-70141542020-03-09 Protecting Children from Toxic Waste: Data-Usability Evaluation Can Deter Flawed Cleanup Shrader-Frechette, Kristin Biondo, Andrew M. Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Nearly 25 percent of US children live within 2 km of toxic-waste sites, most of which are in urban areas. They face higher rates of cancer than adults, partly because the dominant contaminants at most US hazardous-waste sites include genotoxic carcinogens, like trichloroethylene, that are much more harmful to children. The purpose of this article is to help protect the public, especially children, from these threats and to improve toxics-remediation by beginning to test our hypothesis: If site-remediation assessments fail data-usability evaluation (DUE), they likely compromise later cleanups and public health, especially children’s health. To begin hypothesis-testing, we perform a focused DUE for an unremediated, Pasadena, California toxic site. Our DUE methods are (a) comparing project-specific, remediation-assessment data with the remediation-assessment conceptual site model (CSM), in order to identify data gaps, and (b) using data-gap directionality to assess possible determinate bias (whether reported toxics risks are lower/higher than true values). Our results reveal (1) major CSM data gaps, particularly regarding Pasadena-toxic-site risks to children; (2) determinate bias, namely, risk underestimation; thus (3) likely inadequate remediation. Our discussion shows that if these results are generalizable, requiring routine, independent, DUEs might deter flawed toxic-site assessment/cleanup and resulting health threats, especially to children. MDPI 2020-01-08 2020-01 /pmc/articles/PMC7014154/ /pubmed/31936349 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17020424 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Shrader-Frechette, Kristin
Biondo, Andrew M.
Protecting Children from Toxic Waste: Data-Usability Evaluation Can Deter Flawed Cleanup
title Protecting Children from Toxic Waste: Data-Usability Evaluation Can Deter Flawed Cleanup
title_full Protecting Children from Toxic Waste: Data-Usability Evaluation Can Deter Flawed Cleanup
title_fullStr Protecting Children from Toxic Waste: Data-Usability Evaluation Can Deter Flawed Cleanup
title_full_unstemmed Protecting Children from Toxic Waste: Data-Usability Evaluation Can Deter Flawed Cleanup
title_short Protecting Children from Toxic Waste: Data-Usability Evaluation Can Deter Flawed Cleanup
title_sort protecting children from toxic waste: data-usability evaluation can deter flawed cleanup
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7014154/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31936349
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17020424
work_keys_str_mv AT shraderfrechettekristin protectingchildrenfromtoxicwastedatausabilityevaluationcandeterflawedcleanup
AT biondoandrewm protectingchildrenfromtoxicwastedatausabilityevaluationcandeterflawedcleanup