Abstract
In Uruguay safe drinking water is supplied to 94% of the population by a state company (OSE) and 28% is provided from groundwater sources. Geogenic Arsenic. Health risks through groundwater is a very recent issue of concern, regarding all international scientific evidence of several adverse effects associated with low levels (As>20 ug/L).We discuss the advantages of our research studies with a Medical Geology approach, to evaluate the influence of geological factors in the geographical distribution of health problems associated with arsenic exposure, and to highlight the main difficulties found in the process. This approach provides the tools for overlaying local geochemical data and arsenic water levels with disease registry data retrospectively, to potentially identify the possibility that the water consuming population, will develop a particular type of disease over time.We assess available geochemical data and As levels, provided by OSE and epidemiological data available from the National Atlas of Cancer prevalence that were geo-referred in the areas where arsenic data in water were available. We carried out a cross -over treatment data, to evaluate possible failures or deficiencies for their further analysis and correlation, finding several lacking records regarding environmental factors and/or drinking water sources. However, we could get distribution maps with refined data of arsenic levels, contrasted with the incidence data of cancer types associated with arsenic (lung cancer, bladder, melanoma, nonmelanoma skin, liver and kidney), for men and women respectively, finding some interesting correlations.Overlapping the Uruguayan cancer atlas data with As levels in wells can be a potential tool to estimate the contribution of As, to the incidence of cancer, though the retrospective data provided presented several difficulties and inconsistencies. We highlight the relevance of developing an interinstitutional and multidisciplinary common framework.
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