Suchergebnisse

The prevalence of fire in laboratories is high due to the potential sources of the fire hazards, including the use of various equipment and chemicals, as well as the possibility of human error. Accordingly, this study was designed and conducted with the aim of developing a tool to identify hazards and assess laboratory fire risk. In the present study, we used the Delphi technique in three rounds in 2020 with the participation of 17 experts in the fields of safety engineering, occupational health engineering, chemistry, and chemical engineering. The scattering index of coefficient of variation (CV) was higher than 20% and the acceptance criterion for each item was considered with an average of ≥4. In addition, the validity and reliability of this tool were evaluated using content validity ratio (CVR), content validity index (CVI), and Cronbach's alpha reliability index. After three rounds of Delphi study, the hazard identification and risk assessment questionnaire for laboratory fire were developed with 45 items, including chemical materials and compounds, electricity, and fire response. The coefficient of variation (CV) in this Delphi study was equal to 0.05. The results of the validity and reliability evaluation of this tool showed that the content validity index (CVI) and Cronbach's alpha coefficient were equal to 0.902 and 0.88. The questionnaire of the present study indicated an acceptable validity and reliability for identifying hazards and assessing laboratory fire risk. Therefore, this tool provided a quick, easy, and practical way to identify hazards and assess the risk of laboratory fires.

Abstract

Objectives
Leishmaniasis is a neglected and widespread parasitic disease that can lead to serious health problems. The current review study aimed to synthesize the relationship between ecologic and environmental factors (e.g., weather conditions, climatology, temperature and topology) and the incidence of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) in the Old World.


Content
A systematic review was conducted based on English, and Persian articles published from 2015 to 2020 in PubMed/Medline, Science Direct, Web of Science and Google Scholar. Keywords used to search articles were leishmaniasis, environmental factors, weather condition, soil, temperature, land cover, ecologic* and topogr*. All articles were selected and assessed for eligibility according to the titles or abstracts. The quality screening process of articles was carried out by two independent authors. The selected articles were checked according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria.


Summary and outlook
A total of 827 relevant records in 2015–2020 were searched and after evaluating the articles, 23 articles met the eligibility criteria; finally, 14 full-text articles were included in the systematic review. Two different categories of ecologic/environmental factors (weather conditions, temperature, rainfall/precipitation and humidity) and land characteristics (land cover, slope, elevation and altitude, earthquake and cattle sheds) were the most important factors associated with CL incidence.


Conclusions
Temperature and rainfall play an important role in the seasonal cycle of CL as many CL cases occurred in arid and semiarid areas in the Old World. Moreover, given the findings of this study regarding the effect of weather conditions on CL, it can be concluded that designing an early warning system is necessary to predict the incidence of CL based on different weather conditions.

Abstract

Objectives
Stomach cancer (SC) is one of the most common and deadly types of cancer. It is the third leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. The effect of environmental and ecological factors in SC have been assessed in some studies. Thus, we aimed to synthesize the environmental and ecological factors of SC incidence and mortality.


Content
In this systematic review study, the scientific databases, including Web of Science, Scopus and PubMed, were searched from inception to November 2019 for all primary articles written in English by using relevant Medical Subject Heading (Mesh) terms. Two independent authors conducted the screening process to decide on the eligibility and inclusion of the articles in the study. The third author acted as an arbiter to resolve any disagreements.


Summary and Outlook
A total of 157 potentially relevant articles were identified from the initial search 38 of which met the eligibility criteria; finally, 34 articles were included in the systematic review. The results revealed that soil arsenic exposure, coal and other opencast mining installations, living near incinerators and installations for the recovery or disposal of hazardous waste, installations for the production of cement, lime, plaster, and magnesium oxide, proximity to a metal industry sources, dietary iron, ingested asbestos, farming, arsenic in soil, altitude, organochlorines and environmental exposure to cadmium and lead have positive associations with SC incidence or death. Most of the ecological and environmental factors such as living near the mineral industries, the disposal of hazardous waste, metal industry sources and environmental exposure to cadmium and lead are positively related to SC mortality and incidence. However, solar UV-B, heat index and dietary zinc can be taken into account as protective factors against SC mortality and incidence.