Human health risk assessment of exposure to cadmium, lead and chromium through consumption of well and bottled water in Lusaka district, Zambia.
type: CreativeWork
description: Water is an essential product for human survival, which all age groups consume and access to safe drinking water is essential to health. Safe drinking water implies that the water does not represent any significant risk to health over a lifetime of consumption, including different sensitivities that may occur between life stages. Water is prone to contamination with heavy metals through natural and anthropogenic pollution, making it unsuitable for human consumption because of the negative health outcomes associated with it. This study assessed the non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risk of human exposure to cadmium, lead and chromium through consumption of well and bottled water in Lusaka district of Zambia. This study was a deterministic human health risk assessment that followed the Codex Alimentarius Commission's food safety risk assessment framework, comprising hazard identification, hazard characterisation, exposure assessment and risk characterisation. The objective was to assess the risk of exposure to cadmium, lead and chromium through water consumption. The study used results by Nambeye (2017) on well water quality analysis in George compound of Lusaka district and results by ZCSA (2021) on bottled water quality analysis in Lusaka district to estimate the non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risk of exposure to cadmium, lead and chromium through consumption of well and bottled water. The high levels of cadmium, lead and chromium observed in these studies prompted the conduct of this exposure risk assessment study. The study adopted the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) default water consumption and exposure reference values to calculate the hazard quotient and cancer risk for the metals under study. This study found that the hazard index for cadmium, lead and chromium in both well and bottled water was higher than 1, indicating an adverse effect on human health, over a lifetime of consumption. Similarl…
abstract: Water is an essential product for human survival, which all age groups consume and access to safe drinking water is essential to health. Safe drinking water implies that the water does not represent any significant risk to health over a lifetime of consumption, including different sensitivities that may occur between life stages. Water is prone to contamination with heavy metals through natural and anthropogenic pollution, making it unsuitable for human consumption because of the negative health outcomes associated with it. This study assessed the non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risk of human exposure to cadmium, lead and chromium through consumption of well and bottled water in Lusaka district of Zambia. This study was a deterministic human health risk assessment that followed the Codex Alimentarius Commission's food safety risk assessment framework, comprising hazard identification, hazard characterisation, exposure assessment and risk characterisation. The objective was to assess the risk of exposure to cadmium, lead and chromium through water consumption. The study used results by Nambeye (2017) on well water quality analysis in George compound of Lusaka district and results by ZCSA (2021) on bottled water quality analysis in Lusaka district to estimate the non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risk of exposure to cadmium, lead and chromium through consumption of well and bottled water. The high levels of cadmium, lead and chromium observed in these studies prompted the conduct of this exposure risk assessment study. The study adopted the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) default water consumption and exposure reference values to calculate the hazard quotient and cancer risk for the metals under study. This study found that the hazard index for cadmium, lead and chromium in both well and bottled water was higher than 1, indicating an adverse effect on human health, over a lifetime of consumption. Similarl…
author: Banda, Mkuzi
language: en
keywords: Genetic toxicology., Carcinogens., Carcinogenic risk to humans.
date published: 2022
date modified: 2026-07-27T22:06:39Z
provider: University of Zimbabwe
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: The University of Zambia