Adrian G. Barnett | |
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| Born | January 1973 [1] Northampton, UK [1] |
| Alma mater | University College London BSc (Hon) University of Queensland (PhD) |
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| Institutions | Queensland University of Technology [2] |
| Thesis | On the Use of the Bispectrum to Detect and Model Non-linearity [3] (2002) |
| Doctoral advisor | Rodney Carl Wolff [4] |
| Website | staff |
Adrian Gerard Barnett FASSA (born 1973) is a professor in the faculty of Health in the school of Public Health and Social Work, at Queensland University of Technology [2] and was president of the Statistical Society of Australia from 2018 to 2020. [5]
Adrian Gerard Barnett was born in Northampton, England in January 1973. He was awarded a first class honours B.Sc. in statistics from the University College London in 1994. On graduating from UCL he worked as a statistician for SmithKline Beecham and for the Medical Research Council (of Great Britain) before moving to Australia to study for his Ph.D in mathematics. [2] He was awarded a Ph.D in 2002 by the University of Queensland. [6]
Barnett is committed to open research and concerned to make medical science more reproducible and less wasteful [7] and, together with colleagues, lodges prospective study protocols on F1000Research where they can be critiqued by the worldwide community. [8] [9] [10] In part, as a result of this commitment, he collaborates with scientists from New Zealand, [11] from China, [12] [13] [14] from the US, [15] as well as from Australia.
He has published articles on environmental health, [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [11] [12] [21] in particular, on the effects of high temperatures on work related injuries, [22] on death rates, [12] [20] [23] on other temperature-related health issues, [19] [24] [15] [25] and on the statistical methods for the analysis of such data. [26] [27] [28] Much of his work has been towards improving hospitals. [9] [29] [30] Air pollution and its effects on health is another area to which he and his colleagues have made many contributions. [18] [11] [21] [13] [31] [32]
His work on public health has meant that he enters the public arena in order to bring scientific knowledge into the public debate. Thus at the time of the 2014 Hazelwood mine fire in the Latrobe Valley, Barnett publicly criticised the handling of the fire, arguing that at least 11 additional deaths resulted from the long-burning fire and its toxic smoke. [33] [34] He served as an expert witness in the inquiry which followed. [1]
Barnett has criticised air quality standards in Australia as giving apparently safe cut-offs for air pollution concentrations whereas his and others' work shows that there are no safe levels for air pollutants, and thus the "standards" increase the health risks to all Australians. [35] [36] He has used The Conversation to further discuss issues concerning the toxicity of air pollution. [37] [38] [39] [40] [41]
In November 2021 Barnett was elected Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. [42]
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Smoke is a suspension of airborne particulates and gases emitted when a material undergoes combustion or pyrolysis, together with the quantity of air that is entrained or otherwise mixed into the mass. It is commonly an unwanted by-product of fires, but may also be used for pest control (fumigation), communication, defensive and offensive capabilities in the military, cooking, or smoking. It is used in rituals where incense, sage, or resin is burned to produce a smell for spiritual or magical purposes. It can also be a flavoring agent and preservative.
The Great Smog of London, or Great Smog of 1952, was a severe air pollution event that affected London, England, in December 1952. A period of unusually cold weather, combined with an anticyclone and windless conditions, collected airborne pollutants—mostly arising from the use of coal—to form a thick layer of smog over the city. It lasted from Friday 5 December to Tuesday 9 December 1952, then dispersed quickly when the weather changed.
Environmental health is the branch of public health concerned with all aspects of the natural and built environment affecting human health. To effectively control factors that may affect health, the requirements that must be met to create a healthy environment must be determined. The major sub-disciplines of environmental health are environmental science, toxicology, environmental epidemiology, and environmental and occupational medicine.
A polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) is a class of organic compounds that is composed of multiple aromatic rings. The simplest representative is naphthalene, having two aromatic rings, and the three-ring compounds anthracene and phenanthrene. PAHs are uncharged, non-polar and planar. Many are colorless. Many of them are found in coal and in oil deposits, and are also produced by the incomplete combustion of organic matter—for example, in engines and incinerators or when biomass burns in forest fires.
Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) is a chemical compound having an eight-carbon fluorocarbon chain and a sulfonic acid functional group, and thus it is a perfluorosulfonic acid and a perfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS). It is an anthropogenic (man-made) fluorosurfactant, now regarded as a global pollutant. PFOS was the key ingredient in Scotchgard, a fabric protector made by 3M, and related stain repellents. The acronym "PFOS" refers to the parent sulfonic acid and to various salts of perfluorooctanesulfonate. These are all colorless or white, water-soluble solids. Although of low acute toxicity, PFOS has attracted much attention for its pervasiveness and environmental impact. It was added to Annex B of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in May 2009.
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) conducts research into the effects of the environment on human disease, as one of the 27 institutes and centers of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is located in the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, and is the only primary division of the NIH located outside of the Washington metropolitan area.
Aerial application, or what is informally referred to as crop dusting, involves spraying crops with crop protection products from an agricultural aircraft. Planting certain types of seed are also included in aerial application. The specific spreading of fertilizer is also known as aerial topdressing in some countries. Many countries have severely limited aerial application of pesticides and other products because of environmental and public health hazards like spray drift; most notably, the European Union banned it outright with a few highly restricted exceptions in 2009, effectively ending the practice in all member states.
Environmental toxicants and fetal development is the impact of different toxic substances from the environment on the development of the fetus. This article deals with potential adverse effects of environmental toxicants on the prenatal development of both the embryo or fetus, as well as pregnancy complications. The human embryo or fetus is relatively susceptible to impact from adverse conditions within the mother's environment. Substandard fetal conditions often cause various degrees of developmental delays, both physical and mental, for the growing baby. Although some variables do occur as a result of genetic conditions pertaining to the father, a great many are directly brought about from environmental toxins that the mother is exposed to.
Boron deficiency is a pathology which may occur in animals due to a lack of boron. A report given by E. Wayne Johnson et al. at the 2005 Alan D. Leman Swine Conference suggests that boron deficiency produces osteochondrosis in swine that is correctable by addition of 50 ppm of boron to the diet. The tolerable daily intake (TDI) set by the World Health Organization (WHO) is 0.17 mg/kg of body weight for humans.
Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances called pollutants in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. It is also the contamination of the indoor or outdoor environment either by chemical, physical, or biological agents that alters the natural features of the atmosphere. There are many different types of air pollutants, such as gases, particulates and biological molecules. Air pollution can cause diseases, allergies, and even death to humans; it can also cause harm to other living organisms such as animals and crops, and may damage the natural environment or built environment. Air pollution can be caused by both human activities and natural phenomena.
Particulates or atmospheric particulate matter are microscopic particles of solid or liquid matter suspended in the air. The term aerosol commonly refers to the particulate/air mixture, as opposed to the particulate matter alone. Sources of particulate matter can be natural or anthropogenic. They have impacts on climate and precipitation that adversely affect human health, in ways additional to direct inhalation.
The effects of climate change on human health are increasingly well studied and quantified. Rising temperatures and changes in weather patterns are increasing the severity of heat waves, extreme weather and other causes of illness, injury or death. Heat waves and extreme weather events have a big impact on health both directly and indirectly. When people are exposed to higher temperatures for longer time periods they might experience heat illness and heat-related death.
The health of a mother directly affects the fetus during pregnancy. High levels of vehicle pollution where pregnant women reside can have adverse health effects on fetuses.
Restriction enzyme mediated integration is a technique for integrating DNA into the genome sites that have been generated by the same restriction enzyme used for the DNA linearisation. The plasmid integration occurs at the corresponding sites in the genome, often by regenerating the recognition sites by same the restriction enzyme used for plasmid linearisation.
The environmental impact of pig farming is mainly driven by the spread of feces and waste to surrounding neighborhoods, polluting air and water with toxic waste particles. Waste from pig farms can carry pathogens, bacteria, and heavy metals that can be toxic when ingested. Pig waste also contributes to groundwater pollution in the forms of groundwater seepage and waste spray into neighboring areas with sprinklers. The contents in the spray and waste drift have been shown to cause mucosal irritation, respiratory ailment, increased stress, decreased quality of life, and higher blood pressure. This form of waste disposal is an attempt for factory farms to be cost efficient. The environmental degradation resulting from pig farming presents an environmental injustice problem, since the communities do not receive any benefit from the operations, and instead, suffer negative externalities, such as pollution and health problems. The United States Agriculture and Consumer Health Department has stated that the "main direct environmental impact of pig production is related to the manure produced.
Gambierdiscus is a genus of marine dinoflagellates that produce ciguatoxins, a type of toxin that causes the foodborne illness known as ciguatera. They are usually epiphytic on macroalgae growing on coral reefs.
Sarah B. Henderson is a senior environmental health scientist at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control and a public health professor at the University of British Columbia.
Zinc oxide nanoparticles are nanoparticles of zinc oxide (ZnO) that have diameters less than 100 nanometers. They have a large surface area relative to their size and high catalytic activity. The exact physical and chemical properties of zinc oxide nanoparticles depend on the different ways they are synthesized. Some possible ways to produce ZnO nano-particles are laser ablation, hydrothermal methods, electrochemical depositions, sol–gel method, chemical vapor deposition, thermal decomposition, combustion methods, ultrasound, microwave-assisted combustion method, two-step mechanochemical–thermal synthesis, anodization, co-precipitation, electrophoretic deposition, and precipitation processes using solution concentration, pH, and washing medium. ZnO is a wide-bandgap semiconductor with an energy gap of 3.37 eV at room temperature.
Frederica Perera is an American environmental health scientist and the founder of the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Her research career has focused on identifying and preventing harm to children from prenatal and early childhood exposure to environmental chemicals and pollutants. She is internationally recognized for pioneering the field of molecular epidemiology, incorporating molecular techniques into epidemiological studies to measure biologic doses, preclinical responses and susceptibility to toxic exposure.
Children are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change than adults. The World Health Organization estimated that 88% of the existing global burden of disease caused by climate change affects children under five years of age. A Lancet review on health and climate change lists children as the worst-affected category by climate change. Children under 14 are 44 percent more likely to die from environmental factors, and those in urban areas are disproportionately impacted by lower air quality and overcrowding.
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