Abstract
The study aimed to analyse the potential risk behind kindling behaviour in Chinese rural families and to provide insights for policymakers in environmental health. A cluster survey was performed on 113 participant’s families who were living in the countryside in the north of China, using solid fuels for cooking and heating purpose. A questionnaire survey on their kindling behaviour and family information was administrated. Harmful kindling materials including plastic bottles, plastic planting plates, plastic film mulches, plastic bags, waste foams, and medium density fibreboard (MDF) are targeted in the survey. About one third of participant’s families have ever used the listed harmful material for kindling. Based on literature review and the exposure proportion estimated from the questionnaire, we estimated the population attributable fractions (PAF) for all cancer type (10.48–19.48%) and type 2 diabetes (15.57–27.86%) attributable to dioxin exposure. The PAF estimates were greater than our expectation from the view of the global estimate PAF for cancer and T2D. Moreover, we found farming families are more likely to use their farming-related plastic byproducts as kindling material. There is a huge knowledge gap in environmental health in rural China. Although we were not able to measure the specific exposure data, our survey provided a new research aspect for environmental health research and health education. Strengthened environmental health education, better relevant laws, regulations, and supporting policies for regulating rural and farming waste disposal are highly recommended for policymakers in China.
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Data availability
We confirm that all data utilized in this study can be found in figshare repository (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.12922022).
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Acknowledgments
We thank the National Health Committee of China and UNICEF China for financial support. The authors extend our deepest gratitude to colleagues in Department of Women’s, Children’s, and Adolescents’ Environmental Health, NIEH, China CDC, for many useful discussions on the ideas presented here and on the earlier draft of the work.
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BZ contributed to study design, data acquisition, statistical analyses, and manuscript preparation. QW contributed to the guarantor of integrity of the entire study, study concepts, and manuscript final version approval. HS contributed to data interpretation, manuscript editing, and review. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Zhang, ., Sun, H. & Wang, Q. Household kindling behaviours and potential health risks of dioxins exposure in rural Northern China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 6072–6079 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-15982-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-15982-0