[Environmental pollution--assessment of environmental medicine questionnaires and data in Schleswig-Holstein from...

Physicians qualified in environmental medicine due to their participation in special training courses in the federal state Schleswig-Holstein (Germany) may use a standardized questionnaire to report on their environmental medicine-related cases. The course of the illness and recovery, respectively, if known, is to be documented on a separate data sheet. During a three year period from 1995 to 1997 716 cases and 216 courses of illness and recovery, respectively, have been reported. The relevant environmental factors/toxicants of exposure most frequently documented by these physicians and found to be related to symptoms of illness were biocides (mainly insecticides used indoors for pest control, 31%) molds (30%), dental amalgam (28%), solvents or volatile organic compounds (VOC, 23%) and formaldehyde (17%), respectively. In 47% of the documented cases an exposure to more than one environmental factor/toxicant was registered. Age distribution as well as the symptoms of illness of the patients were found to be dependent on the type of exposure. After the physicians diagnosis of an environmental medicine-related illness the exposure was stopped completely in 57% of those cases of whom the course of the illness was known. Recovery was reported in 62% of these patients, and additional 30% had improved but had not recovered completely at the time of data-assessment. From these results it may be concluded that research work in the field of environmental medicine should be enforced in order to prevent unnecessary illness and to lower the costs of the public health system.