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Medication Use Associated with Exposure to Manganese in Two Ohio Towns
Citation:
Bowler, R., S. Adams, C. Wright, Y. Kim, A. Booty, M. Colledge, V. Gocheva, AND D. Lobdell. Medication Use Associated with Exposure to Manganese in Two Ohio Towns. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH RESEARCH. Carfax Publishing Limited, Basingstoke, Uk, 26(5):483-96, (2016).
Impact/Purpose:
This study addresses research questions under Sustainable and Healthy Communities (2.2.1.6 lessons learned, best practices and stakeholder feedback from community and tribal participative case studies). The present study reports findings of a study investigating medication use among adults living in three Ohio towns, two towns exposed to elevated air manganese (air-Mn) and one control town. The study was conducted through the Regional Applied Research Effort which is a joint effort between Region 5 and ORD Scientists. The study population is based on two towns exposed to elevated levels of air manganese and a control town not exposed. The findings for this first environmental study of air-Mn exposed U.S. adults indicates a higher prevalence of medication use for hypothyroidism and pain health problems among the air-Mn exposed group. Other studies examining health outcomes, other than neurologic outcomes, were from highly exposed occupational studies.
Description:
This report describes the use of medications as a proxy when medical record reviews are unavailable, to study the health effects of residents environmentally exposed to airmanganese (n = 185) compared to unexposed residents (n = 90). Participants' current medication lists and medication questionnaire responses were collected in clinical interviews and categorized into 13 domains. Exposed participants reported fewer hours of sleep than controls (6.6 vs. 7.0). The exposed used significantly more medications than unexposed participants (82.2 % vs. 67.8 %) and, when adjusting for age, education, and personal income, also for pain (aOR = 2.40) and hypothyroidism (aOR = 7.03). Exposed participants with higher air-Mn concentrations, monitored for 10 years by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, were 1.5 times more likely to take pain medications. The exposed participants take significantly more medications than unexposed participants in the categories of hypothyroidism, pain, supplements, and total medications.
