Health assessment of artisanal gold miners in Tanzania

Blüml, Stephan; Drasch, G.; Beinhoff, Christian; Tesha, Aloyce L.; Drasch, K.; Roider, Gabriele; Taylor, Helen; Appleton, Don; Siebert, Uwe

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2009.10.051

Cited by 88 publications

(80 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Similarly to previous studies [6,8,12,17], we found that participants who heated gold-mercury amalgams had elevated urine mercury concentrations compared with those who did not heat amalgams. This corresponds to what is known about mercury uptake in humans; very little elemental mercury is absorbed following dermal contact or ingestion while approximately 80 % of elemental mercury vapors that are inhaled are absorbed [23].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

“…This is an order of magnitude higher than levels documented in the general US population (0.44 μg/g creatinine) [1], where artisanal mining using mercury is mainly absent. The median urine total mercury concentration measured among miners who reported heating amalgams in our study (8.65 μg/g creatinine) is in the range found among gold miners in other regions, including Tanzania (3.55 μg/g creatinine), the Philippines (1.3-7.5 μg/g creatinine), Indonesia (5.33-10.24 μg/g creatinine), and Zimbabwe (23.4) [6,8,11].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

“…Previous research found elevated mercury exposure among residents of artisanal mining communities throughout Asia [6,7], Africa [8,9], and South America [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. The Peruvian Amazon is a growing hotbed for artisanal mining, and there is growing concern over the extensive environmental mercury contamination that is occurring here [18][19][20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mercury Exposure Among Artisanal Gold Miners in Madre de Dios, Peru: A Cross-sectional Study

et al. 2012

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Introduction Exposure to mercury, a toxic metal, occurs primarily from inhaling mercury vapors or consuming methylmercury-contaminated fish. One third of all anthropogenic mercury emissions worldwide are from artisanal gold mining, which uses mercury to extract gold. Although recent reports suggest that the Madre de Dios region in Peru (with >30,000 artisanal miners) has extensive mercury contamination, residents had never been assessed for mercury exposure. Thus, our objective was to quantify mercury exposure among residents of an artisanal mining town in Madre de Dios and to assess risk factors for exposure. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional assessment of 103 residents of an artisanal gold mining town in July 2010. Each participant provided a urine and blood sample and completed a questionnaire assessing potential exposures and health outcomes. We calculated geometric mean (GM) urine total mercury and blood methylmercury concentrations and compared log-transformed concentrations between subgroups using linear regression.Results One third (34.0 %) of participants were gold miners. All participants had detectable urine total mercury (GM, 5.5 μg/g creatinine; range, 0.7-151 μg/g creatinine) and 91 % had detectable blood methylmercury (GM, 2.7 μg/L; range, 0.6-10 μg/L); 13 participants (13 %) reported having kidney dysfunction or a neurological disorder. Urine total mercury concentrations were higher among people who heated gold-mercury amalgams compared with people who never heated amalgams (p<0.05); methylmercury concentrations were higher among fish consumers compared with nonfish consumers (p<0.05). Conclusion Our findings suggest that mercury exposure may be widespread in Huaypetue.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mercury Exposure Among Artisanal Gold Miners in Madre de Dios, Peru: A Cross-sectional Study

et al. 2012

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“…The evidence available, covering a number of sub-Saharan African countries, generally shows significant associations between artisanal gold mining and pollution of environmental media and biota (see Nweke and Sanders, 2009;Shandro et al, 2009;Bose-O'Reilly et al, 2010b;Spiegel and Veiga, 2010). However, only few studies have investigated the independent effects of compositional, contextual, and occupational factors on knowledge of artisanal goldminers regarding mercury use, and these studies have reported mixed results (see Charles et al, 2013).…”

Section: Theoretical Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unsafe Occupational Health Behaviors: Understanding Mercury-Related Environmental Health Risks to Artisanal Gold Miners in Ghana

Armah

Boamah

Quansah

et al. 2016

Front. Environ. Sci.

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without any previous occupational health problems (OR = 4.86, p < 0.0001). Although artisanal gold miners who are 25-34 years old were more likely to know than their counterparts who are 18-24 years old, there were no differences in knowledge between those who are 35 years or older and their counterparts who are 18-24 years old. These results emphasize the complex relationships between compositional, contextual and occupational factors on the one hand, and artisanal gold miners' knowledge of environmental and health effects of Hg, on the other hand. Some policy implications of the findings suggest that a more systematic approach to the development and evaluation of interventions to phase out Hg use in artisanal gold mining is desirable, with clearer recognition of the interrelationships between compositional factors of artisanal gold miners and their persistent reliance on Hg in the gold extraction process.

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“…mining communities Bornuur sum, Jargalant sum; control group from Khushaat sum "The body burden resulting from the use of Hg in artisanal gold mining is high not only in the miners themselves, an increased Hg hazard was also found for inhabitants of mining areas who were not actively involved in mining" [18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%