title: Cardiovascular risk from water arsenic exposure in Vietnam: Application of systematic review and meta-regression analysis in chemical health risk assessment.
abstract: A systematic review (SR) and meta-analysis cannot provide the endpoint answer for a chemical risk assessment (CRA). The objective of this study was to apply SR and meta-regression (MR) analysis to address this limitation using a case study in cardiovascular risk from arsenic exposure in Vietnam. Published studies were searched from PubMed using the keywords of arsenic exposure and cardiovascular diseases (CVD). Random-effects meta-regression was applied to model the linear relationship between arsenic concentration in water and risk of CVD, and then the no-observable-adverse-effect level (NOAEL) were identified from the regression function. The probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) technique was applied to characterize risk of CVD due to arsenic exposure by estimating the overlapping coefficient between dose-response and exposure distribution curves. The risks were evaluated for groundwater, treated and drinking water. A total of 8 high quality studies for dose-response and 12 studies for exposure data were included for final analyses. The results of MR suggested a NOAEL of 50 μg/L and a guideline of 5 μg/L for arsenic in water which valued as a half of NOAEL and guidelines recommended from previous studies and authorities. The results of PRA indicated that the observed exposure level with exceeding CVD risk was 52% for groundwater, 24% for treated water, and 10% for drinking water in Vietnam, respectively. The study found that systematic review and meta-regression can be considered as an ideal method to chemical risk assessment due to its advantages to bring the answer for the endpoint question of a CRA.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Environment and Population Health, Griffith University, Australia. Electronic address: d.phung@griffith.edu.au.
authors.forename: Dung
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Phung
authors.affiliation: Griffith School of Environment, Griffith University, Australia.
authors.forename: Des
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Connell
authors.affiliation: Centre for Environment and Population Health, Griffith University, Australia.
authors.forename: Shannon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rutherford
authors.affiliation: Centre for Environment and Population Health, Griffith University, Australia.
authors.forename: Cordia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chu
mesh_terms: D001151:Arsenic / Q000032:analysis*; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000139:chemically induced; D060766:Drinking Water / Q000737:chemistry*; D004781:Environmental Exposure / Q000032:analysis; D060587:Groundwater / Q000737:chemistry; D006801:Humans; D019055:No-Observed-Adverse-Effect Level; D011336:Probability; D012044:Regression Analysis; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods; D012307:Risk Factors; D014744:Vietnam; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis*; D018508:Water Purification
chemical_list: D060766:Drinking Water; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical; D001151:Arsenic
keywords: Arsenic; Cardiovascular risk; Chemical health risk assessment; Systematic review