Environmental health

Prescription opioid use has increased in Québec in recent years. In view of the serious consequences stemming from drug misuse in this pharmacological class, it is possible that the increase has affected the temporal trend in opioid-related poisoning deaths.

Objectives

Determine the opioid-related poisoning death rates in Québec and describe the temporal evolution of the phenomenon by age, gender of the deceased, manner of death, and type of opioid involved…

The Romaine project offers a good illustration of all the risks of implementing major development projects in northern Quebec. The first major hydroelectric site in many years to be established so close to a small community, this project is opening the way for many other large-scale projects. Havre-Saint-Pierre is one of the eight municipalities which, along with the two Aboriginal communities of Ekuanitshit and Nutashkuan, constitute the Regional County Municipality (RCM) of Minganie on the…

Ozone (O3) is a gas that is one of the normal components of the atmosphere. In the stratosphere, it forms the ozone layer and protects the earth from the sun's ultraviolet rays. However, in the troposphere, ozone does not provide this same protective effect; it is instead identified as being a greenhouse gas and one of the main components of smog. This gas could therefore constitute certain risks to human health.

The aim of this document is to present approaches to modelling the…

The Government of Quebec's 2006–2012 Climate Change Action Plan, Quebec and Climate Change: A Challenge for the Future, brings together several Quebec government departments and agencies. The Green Fund, financed by a levy on fossil fuels, is mainly being used to fund 26 measures focused on two key objectives: greenhouse gas emission reductions and adaptation to climate change.

The Ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux (MSSS) is responsible for the health component of…

Environmental health is a rapidly evolving field, and people working in this field have to deal with increasingly complex situations. Many environmental health practitioners need to develop new professional practices and update their competencies continuously in order to adapt to the new realities in the field. A group of public health experts set out to develop this environmental health competency framework in order to give practitioners an opportunity to engage in a process of continuing…

This summary is the second in a series of five short documents based on a literature review published in 2011. In what follows, we first present the mechanisms of action underlying traffic-calming strategies, as these mechanisms help to explain and predict the effects of calming interventions on air pollution produced by traffic. Next, we summarize the results of studies having evaluated two approaches to traffic calming. Lastly, we consider the implications of such results for public health…

The Institut national de santé public du Québec (INSPQ) decided to draw on the expertise of the CIRAIG to conduct a life cycle assessment (LCA) of ten urban heat island mitigation (UHI) measures applicable to the residential sector. The goal was not to compare or evaluate the effectiveness of these measures, but rather to assess the other potential environmental impacts that result from their implementation and maintenance during a specified period. The options were therefore analyzed on an…

The goal of the St. Lawrence Food Guide is to communicate information on aquatic resources of the St. Lawrence. This guide concerns commercial species of fish, mollusk and crustacean from the St. Lawrence river, estuary and gulf which are sold in Québec' s supermarkets and fisheries. The food guide gives information on nutritional and organoleptic qualities of these species. Also, a delicious recipe, easy to prepare, is presented for each species.

In the autumn of 2007, the Association des victimes de l'amiante du Québec (AVAQ – a Québec association for asbestos victims) and the Ministère du Développement durable, de l'Environnement et des Parcs du Québec (MDDEP – Québec ministry of sustainable development, the environment and parks) published studies on the asbestos concentrations measured in indoor and outdoor air in Thetford Mines. The findings motivated the public health authorities in Chaudière-Appalaches and…

In the autumn of 2007, the Association des victimes de l'amiante du Québec (AVAQ – a Québec association for asbestos victims) and the Ministère du Développement durable, de l'Environnement et des Parcs du Québec (MDDEP – Québec ministry of sustainable development, the environment and parks) published studies on the asbestos concentrations measured in indoor and outdoor air in Thetford Mines. The findings motivated the public health authorities in Chaudière-Appalaches and…