Wildland firefighters: A crucial weapon for forest fire management: Which health risks do they face?

Fire when uncontrolled can become a destructive force that risks wildlife, property, and human lives. Global warming has contributed to the increase and severity of wildfires in the last decades, requiring greater political and local authority involvement to protect people. Wildland firefighters are an essential tool for the management of any forest fire. However, they face unique occupational risks characterized by physically demanding tasks, long hours in severe conditions, and exposure to ...

Distribution, transport and fate of pollutants

Soil is a complex dynamic system of critical importance for life on Earth. As natural and anthropogenic processes continuously use soil as sink or pathway to potentially toxic elements (PTEs) and organic pollutants (OPs), it is crucial to understand their distribution, transport, and fate. This chapter provides a brief and focused overview about the migration of PTEs and OPs in soil. The physical, chemical, and biological mechanisms of soil were analyzed and discussed, due to the influence th...

Vitamin C, B-complex vitamins and inflammation

Biomonitoring

Biomonitoring refers to the systematic measurement of compounds and/or detection of cell or cell molecules alterations in living organisms with the purpose of identifying or assessing potential hazardous exposure and effects to chemicals or other hazardous agents. The goal of this chapter is to provide an overview on biomonitoring, both from the environmental and human health perspectives. Therefore, the main concepts of environmental and human biomonitoring are here described, alongside a fe...