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The Close Connection between Environmental Pollution and Medicinal Prescriptions

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Guest Editor
Department of Pharmacy, Università degli Studi di Genova, Genoa, Italy
Interests: environmental chemistry; trace elements; biomonitoring; air quality; atomic spectrometry; experimental design; multivariate analysis

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Pharmacy, Università degli Studi di Genova, Genoa, Italy
Interests: pharmaceutical technology; drug delivery; formulation; stability studies; pharmaceutical analysis; pharmacoeconomics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The relevance of the effects of environmental pollution on the health of ecosystems is a global concern. Regarding human health, WHO estimates that polluted air is responsible for 7 million premature deaths, determined by a growing incidence of respiratory and cardiovascular pathologies. The impressive burden of disease related to air pollution—both in terms of new onset and worsening of existing pathologies—includes acute respiratory infections, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer, stroke, heart disease, and neurological disorders. The adverse health outcomes are more severe in vulnerable groups of the population such as children and elderly people.

Recently, several studies have shown that an increase in drug prescriptions can be associated with air pollution, in particular for certain classes of medicinal products (e.g., respiratory and cardiovascular, according to Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) classification).

On the other hand, the same pharmaceuticals, although necessary to prevent and cure diseases, may in turn become a new and important threat for the environment, reaching surface waters and groundwater through domestic, hospital and industrial effluents where the excreted active ingredients and the disposal of unused drugs are collected.

This Special Issue aims to provide a comprehensive, multidisciplinary and updated view of the research focused on these two closely connected and challenging issues: the impact of environmental pollution on public health in terms of use of pharmaceuticals and the impact of pharmaceuticals on the health of the environment.

Prof. Giuliana Drava
Prof. Gabriele Caviglioli
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • air quality
  • disease burden
  • environmental pollution
  • health indicators
  • medicinal prescriptions
  • pharmaceutical waste

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Review

37 pages, 10995 KiB  
Review
Pharmaceuticals Market, Consumption Trends and Disease Incidence Are Not Driving the Pharmaceutical Research on Water and Wastewater
by Omar Israel González Peña, Miguel Ángel López Zavala and Héctor Cabral Ruelas
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(5), 2532; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18052532 - 4 Mar 2021
Cited by 127 | Viewed by 12682
Abstract
Pharmaceuticals enhance our quality of life; consequently, their consumption is growing as a result of the need to treat ageing-related and chronic diseases and changes in the clinical practice. The market revenues also show an historic growth worldwide motivated by the increase on [...] Read more.
Pharmaceuticals enhance our quality of life; consequently, their consumption is growing as a result of the need to treat ageing-related and chronic diseases and changes in the clinical practice. The market revenues also show an historic growth worldwide motivated by the increase on the drug demand. However, this positivism on the market is fogged because the discharge of pharmaceuticals and their metabolites into the environment, including water, also increases due to their inappropriate management, treatment and disposal; now, worldwide, this fact is recognized as an environmental concern and human health risk. Intriguingly, researchers have studied the most effective methods for pharmaceutical removal in wastewater; however, the types of pharmaceuticals investigated in most of these studies do not reflect the most produced and consumed pharmaceuticals on the market. Hence, an attempt was done to analyze the pharmaceutical market, drugs consumption trends and the pharmaceutical research interests worldwide. Notwithstanding, the intensive research work done in different pharmaceutical research fronts such as disposal and fate, environmental impacts and concerns, human health risks, removal, degradation and development of treatment technologies, found that such research is not totally aligned with the market trends and consumption patterns. There are other drivers and interests that promote the pharmaceutical research. Thus, this review is an important contribution to those that are interested not only on the pharmaceutical market and drugs consumption, but also on the links, the drivers and interests that motivate and determine the research work on certain groups of pharmaceuticals on water and wastewater. Full article
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