Fish Consumption and Hair Mercury Levels in Women of Childbearing Age, Martin County, Florida
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Fish Consumption and Hair Mercury Levels in Women of Childbearing Age, Martin County, Florida Anil Nair • Melissa Jordan • Sharon Watkins • Robert Washam • Chris DuClos • Serena Jones • Jason Palcic • Marek Pawlowicz • Carina Blackmore
Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
Abstract The health effects of mercury in humans are mostly on the developing nervous system. Pregnant women and women who are breastfeeding must be targeted in order to decrease mercury exposure to the populations at highest risk—infants, unborn fetuses, and young children. This purpose of this study is to understand the demographics of fish-consumption patterns among women of childbearing age (including pregnant women) in Martin County, Florida, and to analyze the associations of mercury levels in participants’ hair with socio-demographic variables in order to better design prevention messages and campaigns. Mercury concentrations in hair samples of 408 women ages 18–49 were assessed. Data on demographic factors, pregnancy status, fish consumption, and awareness of fish advisories were collected during personal interviews. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multivariate logistic regression. The geometric and arithmetic means of hair mercury concentration were 0.371 and 0.676 lg/g of hair. One-fourth of the respondents had a concentration C1 lg/g of hair. Consuming a higher number of fish meals per month, consumption of commercially purchased or locally caught fish higher in mercury, White race and income C$75,000 were positively associated with A. Nair M. Jordan (&) S. Watkins C. DuClos C. Blackmore Bureau of Epidemiology, Florida Department of Health, 4052 Bald Cypress Way, Bin A-08, Tallahassee, FL 32399, USA e-mail: [email protected] R. Washam S. Jones Martin County Health Department, Florida Department of Health, 3441 SE Willoughby Boulevard, Stuart, FL 34994, USA J. Palcic M. Pawlowicz Bureau of Public Health Laboratories, Florida Department of Health, 1217 Pearl Street, Jacksonville, FL 32202, USA
the likelihood of having higher hair mercury levels. This study confirms the existence of a higher overall mean hair mercury level and a higher percentage of women with C1 lg/g hair mercury level than those reported at the national level and in other regional studies. This suggests the need for region-specific fish consumption advisories to minimize mercury exposure in humans. Keywords Fish consumption Hair Mercury Women of childbearing age
Introduction Mercury is a metal existing naturally in the earth’s crust. Through a combination of natural and anthropogenic processes, mercury gets deposited in water and becomes methyl mercury through biotransformation by aquatic microorganisms [1, 2]. Fish consumption is the most important pathway of mercury exposure in humans. While all fish have methyl mercury in their tissues, predatory fish that are long-lived tend to have higher body burdens of methyl mercury [1, 3]. The most important toxic effect of methyl mercury is on the development of
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