Maria Argos ¹, Faruque Parvez ², Yu Chen ¹, A.Z.M. Iftikhar Hussain ³, Hassina Momotaj ³, Geoffrey R. Howe ¹, Joseph H. Graziano ², Habibul Ahsan ^1*

¹ Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
² Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
³ National Institute of Preventive and Social Medicine, Bangladesh

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ha37{at}columbia.edu.

	Abstract

Objectives. Arsenic contamination of groundwater is a severe public health crisis in Bangladesh, where the population is exposed to arsenic in drinking water through tube wells used for groundwater collection. We explored the association between socioeconomic status and arsenic toxicity.

Methods. We used baseline data from 11438 men and women who were recruited into the Health Effects of Arsenic Longitudinal Study (HEALS), a prospective cohort study on the health effects of arsenic exposure in Bangladesh. We conducted analyses with logistic regression and generalized estimating equations.

Results. We found a strong dose-response group association with all measures of arsenic exposure and skin lesions. We also found that the effect of arsenic was modified by land ownership on a multiplicative scale, with an increased risk among non-land owners associated with well water arsenic (P=.04) and urinary total arsenic concentrations (P=.03).

Conclusions. Our study provides insight into potentially modifiable host characteristics, and identifies factors that may effectively target susceptible population subgroups for appropriate interventions.

Key Words: Cancer, Environment, Epidemiology, Global Health, Asians