Prof. Jane Entwistle

Professor of Environmental Geochemistry and Health, Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Northumbria University, Newcastle UK

Brief Biography of Prof. Jane Entwistle


Jane’s research addresses problems at the interface between geochemistry and human health and evidences her commitment to improve environmental practice, policy and decision making in a complex real-world environment. Her principal focus has been on the bioavailability and bioaccessibility of trace elements in the environment to enhance our understanding of exposures to environmental pollutants and to inform ways to reduce this exposure.  

Keynote title:

Baseline data on chemicals and microbial communities in regular households via a global citizen science-academic partnership  

Abstract

Human health and wellbeing are intimately linked to the state of the environment. By 2050 UN projections indicate two thirds of the world’s population will live in cities, yet urban areas remain some of the unhealthiest places to live. Opportunities exist through citizen science to engage communities and provide a valuable source of local information which can broaden our understanding and inform interventions. We co-developed a global partnership to explore the indoor exposome via house dust (www.MapMyEnvironment.com) and evaluated trace metal concentrations and health risks in homes from 33 countries, along with a suite of potentially contributary residential characteristics. Increasing home age was associated with greater lead (5 mg/kg per year of house age) and arsenic (0.48 mg/kg per year) concentrations, as were peeling paint, recent renovation and garden access.

Indoor dust also serves as a reservoir for environmental exposure to microbial communities yet our knowledge of the spatial heterogeneity of bacterial assemblages in our residential environment remains limited. To investigate the existence of a common core house dust bacterial microbiome we selected household vacuum dusts from homes across two bioclimatic regions (UK, Oceanic/Maritime and Greece, Mediterranean). We identified both a “common to all” core house dust microbiome and a “unique location specific” microbiome. We also conducted shotgun metagenome sequencing to look specifically at one set of human health related indicator functional genes. We targeted antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes to investigate the distribution, variability and potential for regional variation of this human health related functional gene family. Of the 33 most commonly prescribed antibiotics in the UK, only AMR to 4 (ciprofloxacin, erythromycin, fosfomycin and norfloxacin) were encountered as common in the study.
 Our study highlights community science as a powerful approach to access the indoor residential environment, at scale, and a mechanism to promote environmental health literacy through engagement activities. 


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