Unsafe Occupational Health Behaviors: Understanding Mercury-Related Environmental Health Risks to Artisanal Gold Miners in Ghana
نویسندگان
چکیده
1 Department of Environmental Science, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana, 2 Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing, Health Sciences Addition, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada, 3 Biological, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, School of Public Health University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana, 4 Council for Scientific and Industrial Research-Water Research Institute, Accra, Ghana, 5 Department of Geography, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada
منابع مشابه
A cross-sectional survey on knowledge and perceptions of health risks associated with arsenic and mercury contamination from artisanal gold mining in Tanzania
BACKGROUND An estimated 0.5 to 1.5 million informal miners, of whom 30-50% are women, rely on artisanal mining for their livelihood in Tanzania. Mercury, used in the processing gold ore, and arsenic, which is a constituent of some ores, are common occupational exposures that frequently result in widespread environmental contamination. Frequently, the mining activities are conducted haphazardly ...
متن کاملExposure of Small-Scale Gold Miners in Prestea to Mercury, Ghana, 2012
INTRODUCTION Small-scale gold miners in Ghana have been using mercury to amalgamate gold for many years. Mercury is toxic even at low concentration. We assessed occupational exposure of small-scale gold miners to mercury in Prestea, a gold mining town in Ghana. METHODS We conducted a cross-sectional study in which we collected morning urine samples from 343 small-scale gold miners and tested ...
متن کاملIntegrated Assessment of Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining in Ghana—Part 1: Human Health Review
This report is one of three synthesis documents produced via an integrated assessment (IA) that aims to increase understanding of artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) in Ghana. Given the complexities surrounding ASGM, an IA framework was utilized to analyze economic, social, health, and environmental data, and co-develop evidence-based responses with pertinent stakeholders. The current ...
متن کاملGlobal Burden of Disease of Mercury Used in Artisanal Small-Scale Gold Mining.
BACKGROUND Artisanal small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is the world's largest anthropogenic source of mercury emission. Gold miners are highly exposed to metallic mercury and suffer occupational mercury intoxication. The global disease burden as a result of this exposure is largely unknown because the informal character of ASGM restricts the availability of reliable data. OBJECTIVE To estimate t...
متن کاملSigns and symptoms of mercury-exposed gold miners.
OBJECTIVES Gold miners use mercury to extract gold from ore adding liquid mercury to the milled gold-containing ore. This results in a mercury-gold compound, called amalgam. Miners smelt this amalgam to obtain gold, vaporizing it and finally inhaling the toxic mercury fumes. The objective was to merge and analyze data from different projects, to identify typical signs and symptoms of chronic in...
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