Survey on Awareness for Environmental Health Risk of Fetus and Infant in Reproductive-aged Women

Jiyoung Shin; Eunkyo Park; Jungeun Shin; Eun-Hee Ha

doi:10.12771/emj.2018.41.2.35

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Shin, Park, Shin, and Ha: Survey on Awareness for Environmental Health Risk of Fetus and Infant in Reproductive-aged Women

Original Article

The Ewha Medical Journal 2018; 41(2): 35-43.

Published online: 30 April 2018

DOI: https://doi.org/10.12771/emj.2018.41.2.35

Survey on Awareness for Environmental Health Risk of Fetus and Infant in Reproductive-aged Women

Jiyoung Shin, Eunkyo Park, Jungeun Shin, Eun-Hee Ha

Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Ewha Womans University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.

Corresponding author: Eun-Hee Ha. Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Ewha Womans University College of Medicine, 1071 Anyangcheon-ro, Yangcheon-gu, Seoul 07985, Korea. Tel: 82-2-2650-5757, Fax: 82-2-2653-1086, eunheeha@ewha.ac.kr

Received 1 February 2018 Revised 16 April 2018 Accepted 16 April 2018

Ewha Womans University School of Medicine

(open-access):

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Objectives

The accumulated evidence shows that adult disease may have origins during the fetal period and maternal environmental exposure may affect fetus and infant health. To assess the environmental health of fetus and infants and examine women's concerns about environmental health, we designed and conducted an environmental health survey in reproductive-aged women in 2011.

Methods

A stratified multi-stage design was adopted for our survey, and 1,000 reproductive-aged women aged 25 to 39 years participated. The participants were asked to complete an electronic questionnaire using the computer-assisted web interviewing method. All the participants were married woman, and 80% had experienced pregnancy before completing the survey.

Results

In the study, 86.3% of the participants responded that they are worried about the environmental problems that may affect the fetus and infant. The participants responded that they were most worried about global warming and climate change (36.2%), electromagnetic waves (31.4%), and endocrine disrupting chemicals (25.1%). Moreover, participants responded that environmental problem can cause children's allergic disease, such as atopic dermatitis, metabolic syndrome and growth development.

Conclusion

We found reproductive-aged women have high awareness of children's environmental health. We also recommended that additional surveys on mother and child environmental health be conducted to make a health policy for women, fetus and infant.

Keywords: Environmental health, Women, Fetus, Infants, Health surveys

Figures and Tables

Table 1

General characteristics of the study population (n=1,000)

Table 2

Total environmental risk assessment to fetus and infant and health*

Values are presented as number (%).

*Question: How much of a problem do you think are the effects of exposure to environmental pollution on fetus and infant health in Korea?

Table 3

Environmental risk assessment to fetus and infant health by each individual risk factor*

Values are presented as number (%).

*Question: How serious do you think is each of these environmental problems that could affect fetus and infant health?

Table 4

Prioritizing environmental risk assessment to fetus and infant health by individual risk factor*

Values are presented as number (%).

*Question: What do you think is the most serious environmental problem that could affect fetus and infant health?

Table 5

Assessment of the risk of environmental pollution having various adverse effects on fetal development*

*Question: What do you think are the adverse effects on fetal development that could be caused by environmental pollution?

Table 6

Assessment of the risk of environmental pollution causing diseases in infant*

*Question: What diseases in infant do you think are caused by environmental pollution?

Table 7

Assessment of the policies and actions of the Minister of the Environment*

Values are presented as number (%).

*Question: What do you think about each of these governmental policies and actions to promote fetus and infant health?

Table 8

Prioritizing the policies and actions of the Minister of the Environment*

Values are presented as number (%).

*Question: What do you think is the most important policy or action that the government should consider?

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by MOCEH (Mothers and Children's Environmental Health) project of the Ministry of Environment, Republic of Korea.

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Supplementary Materials

Supplementary materials are available from: https://doi.org/10.12771/emj.2018.41.2.35.

Supplementary Table 1

Assessment of the risk of environmental pollution having various adverse effects on infant development by each characteristics of participants

Supplementary Table 2

Assessment of the risk of environmental pollution causing diseases in infant by each characteristics of participants

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