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American Journal of Epidemiology Advance Access originally published online on October 26, 2006
American Journal of Epidemiology 2007 165(1):72-77; doi:10.1093/aje/kwj345
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American Journal of Epidemiology Copyright © 2006 by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health All rights reserved; printed in U.S.A.

ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS

Kidney Disease Mortality and Environmental Exposure to Mercury

Susan Hodgson, Mark J. Nieuwenhuijsen, Paul Elliott and Lars Jarup

From the Small Area Health Statistics Unit, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

Reprint requests to Dr. Susan Hodgson, Small Area Health Statistics Unit, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Imperial College London, London W2 1PG, United Kingdom (e-mail: susan.hodgson{at}imperial.ac.uk).

Runcorn, North West England, has been a site of industrial activity for over 100 years. Preliminary investigations have revealed excess risk of renal mortality in the population living closest to several sources of pollution. Exposure to airborne mercury has been highlighted as a possible cause, although there is also concomitant exposure to solvents and other heavy metals in this population. The authors used validated air dispersion modeling to identify mercury-exposed populations. Standardized mortality ratios for kidney disease were computed using the North West government region as the reference. There was a significant exposure-response relation between modeled estimates of mercury exposure and risk of kidney disease mortality (test for trend: p = 0.02 for men and p = 0.03 for women), and this relation was more pronounced for estimated historical exposure (test for trend: p = 0.01 for men and p < 0.001 for women). These findings suggest that exposure to mercury is a possible cause of the excess kidney disease mortality in this population, indicating that there might still be a health legacy of the historically high levels of industrial activity in the Runcorn area.

chemical industry; environmental exposure; kidney diseases; mercury; mortality; solvents

Abbreviations: ADMS, Atmospheric Dispersion Modeling System; SMR, standardized mortality ratio


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