RESEARCHERS FISH for ANSWERS
RESEARCH ROUNDUP
NEW EFFORTS HIGHLIGHT RISKS OF ANACOSTIA POLLUTION
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esearchers are working with residents in the Anacostia Watershed to tackle the intertwined issues of food, water pollution and health. More than 17,000 people fish for their food in the Anacostia River each year. These subsistence fishers rely on their catch—usually catfish—to feed themselves, their families and sometimes others in their communities. A team of researchers at Maryland is exploring the health risks that vulnerable populations, such as lowincome, minority communities, face from eating that fish. Sacoby Wilson (facing page), an assistant professor of environmental health, runs Project CAESARR (Community-based Assessment of Exposure to Substances in the Anacostia River Region).“We really want to connect human health to ecosystem health. Many programs, while they provide important environmental data, don’t connect the
risks of environmental impact to human health,” he says. “We want to understand the health risks and get data to be implemented into policies.” Environmental health disparities are a major issue in Maryland. Three areas with some of the highest minority populations in the state—Baltimore City, Charles County and Prince George’s County—also have the most sources of pollutants and chemicals. These include power plants, manufacturing operations, and garbage incinerators, and pollutants from these sources can end up in local streams and rivers where they are consumed by fish and, eventually, by people who eat the fish. Disproportionate numbers of racial and ethnic minorities, low-income individuals and non-English speakers are affected by the high concentration of pollutants and the contaminated fish. And the pollution has an impact—a recent county health rankings study put Prince George’s last in
the state for overall health. Through a School of Public Health partnership with the Anacostia Watershed Society and the Anacostia Community Museum, the UMD researchers created “recreational fishing days” to study the fish of the Anacostia River and help educate the community about the dangers of river contamination. Through another partnership with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, fish caught at the recreational fishing days are analyzed to detect toxins known to be present in the river. These toxins, such as polychlorinated biphenyls, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and heavy metals, can have damaging effects on skin, the liver, the immune system and the nervous system; they may even have carcinogenic effects. Rianna Murray, a doctoral student in toxicology and environmental health
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