The Michigan-West Africa Geohealth Hub: Environmental Exposures Due to Informal E-Waste Recycling Activities and the Health of Workers

Abstract

Overview: The West Africa-Michigan CHARTER II GEOHealth Hub, jointly funded by the US NIH/FIC and Canada’s IDRC, integrates research and research training activities of West African Anglophone and Francophone institutions, with support from the University of Michigan and McGill University. Research Goal: To increase multi-disciplinary understanding of the risks associated with waste recycling, and to use study findings to inform evidence-based implementation activities and policy options at multi-levels. Specific Objectives: Include: 1) characterize work-related, time-varying, job-specific exposures of electronic waste recycling workers at the Agbogbloshie site, and assess biological markers of dose, to metals, organic compounds, and markers of combustion products; 2) provide estimates of potentially increased lifetime, work-exposure-associated cancer risks; and, 3) evaluate associations of exposures with measures of acute and chronic respiratory morbidity in workers. Methodology: A longitudinal design in which we enrolled a combined total of 151 study participants over a 3-week period. We collected and are analyzing, repeated measures across seasons for each participant: 1) biological samples for a) metals, b) organic compounds including flame retardants, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, dioxin-related compounds, and 2) personal air monitoring, through a combination of real-time measurements and analysis of size-specific samples collected on filters, including markers of combustion products. Results: Preliminary filter-based data show that e-waste workers have breathing zone PM2.5 concentrations of 135 ± 188 µg m-3 (mean ± st. dev., n = 89) compared to 45 ± 18 µg m-3 (n = 43) of controls; these worker exposures are considerably higher than levels obtained using area monitoring at the waste site, e.g., 84 ± 24 µg m-3 (n = 9). Based on real-time measurements, burning tasks resulted in exceptionally high PM2.5 exposures.