Background: Portugal is among the European Union countries more devastated by forest fires. Wildland firefighters are at the forefront of this battle, facing exposure to a wide range of harmful pollutants. Epidemiological studies have highlighted a potential link between occupational firefighting exposure and several diseases, including cancer. To date, very few studies have explored the biological mechanisms a...
Introduction: Available literature has found an association between firefighting and pathologic pathways leading to cardiorespiratory diseases, which have been linked with exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). PAHs are highlighted as priority pollutants by the European Human Biomonitoring Initiative in occupational and non-occupational contexts. Methods: This cross-sectional study is the first to...
Sleep research has grown over the past decades and investigators are deeply involved in studying sleep and its impact on human health and body regulation. Despite the understanding that insufficient sleep is strongly linked to the development of several disorders, unsatisfactory sleep exposes health and safety to innumerous risks. The present study aims to review and analyze the main results of clinical trials,...
IARC has recently listed occupational exposure as a firefighter carcinogenic to humans. However, firefighter is among the least studied occupations. The goal of the present study was to assess the level of cytogenetic damage in buccal mucosa (first-contact exposure tissue) of Portuguese firefighters during the pre- wildland fire season, as well as, to evaluate firefighters ́ exposure to particulate matter (PM) ...
The aim of this study was to evaluate and describe the overall sleep quality of firefighters. Application of the Portuguese version of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) to firefighters, from the Northeast of Portugal, who accepted to participate in the study. Data collected between June 2021 and July 2022. The PSQI global score classified participants as 36,9% of participants as poor sleepers, although ...
Background:Evidence linking wildland firefighters’ occupational exposure and health outcomes is still limited. Cytogenetic endpoints have long been applied in the surveillance of human genotoxic exposures and early effects of genotoxic carcinogens. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to clarify the exposure-induced cytogenetic effects concerning wildland firefighters’ occupational exposure at different time p...
Plant volatiles are secondary metabolites with a wide range of applications in several industries, namely the textile, food, pharma, and perfumery. These molecules are usually from three major groups, the terpenoid, phenylpropanoid/benzenoid and fatty acid derivatives group. This work focused on applying the response surface methodology technique towards optimizing the yield in essential oils of Eucalyptus glob...
This work assessed firefighters’ exposure to particulate matter (PM) in non-fire work settings during pre-fire season, as a baseline for the respective occupational exposure characterization. Indoor and outdoor air sampling was conducted for two weeks in pre-fire season of 2021 in seven fire corporations (FC1-FC7) in north of Portugal. PM fractions (PM2.5, PM10) were continuously monitored concurrently in indoo...
Firefighters are at increased risk for many types of health diseases (IARC, 2010). While most of the studies on this topic focus on exposures and their impacts due to the fire combats (Oliveira et al., 2017), firefighters spend large portions of their day-by-day shift within the fire stations, where they can be exposed to a variety of air pollutants, including particulate matter (PM), i.e., a known carcinogen. ...
Firefighters represent one of the riskiest occupations, yet due to the logistic reasons, the respective exposure assessment is one of the most challenging. Thus, this work assessed the impact of firefighting activities on levels of urinary monohydroxyl-polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (OHPAHs; 1-hydroxynaphthalene, 1-hydroxyacenaphthene, 2-hydroxyfluorene, 1-hydroxyphenanthrene, 1-hydroxypyrene, 3-hydroxybenzo(...