Adequate funding, careful planning, and good governance are central to delivering quality research in any field. Yet, the strategic directions for research, the mechanisms through which topics emerge, and the priorities assigned are equally deserving of attention. The need to understand the role played by the environment and to manage the physical environment and the human activities which bear upon it in pursuit of health, well-being, and equity are long established. These imperatives drive environmental health research as a key branch of scientific inquiry. Targeted research over many years, applying established methods, has informed society’s understanding of the toxic, infectious, allergenic, and physical threats to health from our physical surroundings and how these may be managed. Essentially hazard-focused research continues to deliver policy-relevant findings while simultaneously posing questions to be addressed through further research. Environmental health in the 21st century is, however, confronted by additional challenges of a rather different character. These include the need to understand, in a better and more policy-relevant way, the contributions of the environment to health and equity in complex interaction with other societal and individual-level influences (a so-called socioecological model). Also important are the potential of especially green and blue natural environments to improve health and well-being and promote equity, and the health implications of new approaches to production and consumption, such as the circular economy. Such challenges add breadth, depth, and richness to the environmental health research agenda, but when combined with the existential and public health threat of humanity’s detrimental impact on the Earth’s systems, they entail a need for new and better strategies for scientific inquiry. As we confront the challenges and uncertainties of the Anthropocene, the complexity expands, the stakes become sky-high, and diverse interests and values clash. Thus, the pressure on environmental health researchers to evolve and engage with stakeholders and reach out to the widest constituency of policy and practice has never been greater, nor has the need to organize to deliver. A disparate range of contextual factors have become pertinent when scoping the now significantly extended, territory for environmental health research. Moreover, the challenges of prioritizing among the candidate topics for investigation have scarcely been greater.
The morphological and immunohistochemical findings in lymph nodes of nine patients with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and 81 patients with the AIDS‐related complex (ARC) are presented. Three basic histological patterns were observed: follicular hyperplasia (29 cases), mixed hyperplasia (49 cases) and lymphocyte depletion (12 cases). While the first two variants were detected in typical ARC patients, lymphocyte depletion was always associated with AIDS. Immunohistochemistry on frozen sections showed that the number of B‐cells varied throughout the series, being higher in the follicular type and significantly lower in the lymphocyte depletion nodes. The content of T‐lymphocytes of the helper/inducer (T4) phenotype was reduced in all instances; this reduction was more pronounced in the germinal centres in follicular hyperplasia, while it involved all compartments of the node in the mixed and lymphocyte depletion types. In contrast the cytotoxic/suppressor (T8) subset was increased in the follicular and mixed hyperplasias only. Partial disintegration of the dendritic network in at least some of the follicles could be demonstrated in all lymph nodes. In the follicular and mixed hyperplasias there was a high number of proliferating B‐cells in the germinal centres. Our data indicate the usefulness of grading the changes occurring in lymph nodes of patients with ARC and AIDS, and allow speculation as to the pathophysiology of these conditions.
to estimate the health impact of ozone in 13 Italian cities over 200,000 inhabitants and to produce basic elements to permit the reproducibility of the study in other urban locations.the following data have been used: population data (2001), health data (2001 or from scientific literature), environmental data (2002-2004), from urban background monitoring station and concentration/response risk coefficients derived from recent metanalyses. The indicators SOMO35 and SOMO0 have been used as a proxi of the average exposure to calcolate attributable deaths (and years of life lost) and several causes of morbility for ozone concentrations over 70 microg/m3.acute mortality for all causes and for cardiovascular mortality, respiratory-related hospital admissions in elderly, asthma exacerbation in children and adults, minor restricted activity days, lower respiratory symptoms in children.over 500 (1900) deaths, the 0.6% (2.1%) of total mortality, equivalent to about 6000 (22,000) years of life lost are attributable to ozone levels over 70 microg/m3 in the 13 Italian cities under study. Larger figures, in the order of thousands, are attributable to less severe morbidity outcomes.The health impact of ozone in Italian towns is relevant in terms of acute mortality and morbidity, although less severe than PM10 impact. Background ozone levels are increasing. Abatement strategies for ozone concentrations should consider the whole summer and not only "peak" days and look at policies limiting the concentration of precursors produced by traffic sources. Relevant health benefits can be obtained also under levels proposed as guidelines in the present environmental regulations.
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