Children and Parents’ Awareness Regarding Potential Hazards Derived from the Use of Chemical Products in Greece

Christina Tsitsimpikou, Nikolaos Georgiadis, Konstantinos Tsarouhas, Panagiotis Kartsidis, Eleni Foufa, Flora Bacopoulou, Athanasios Choursalas, Dimitrios Kouretas, Alexandros K. Nikolaidis and Elisabeth A. Koulaouzidou
Additional contact information
Christina Tsitsimpikou: General Chemical State Laboratory of Greece, 11521 Athens, Greece
Nikolaos Georgiadis: European Chemicals Agency, 00121 Helsinki, Finland
Konstantinos Tsarouhas: Department of Cardiology, University Hospital of Larissa, 41110 Larissa, Greece
Panagiotis Kartsidis: School of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, Aristotle University, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
Eleni Foufa: General Chemical State Laboratory of Greece, 11521 Athens, Greece
Flora Bacopoulou: Center for Adolescent Medicine and UNESCO Chair on Adolescent Health Care, First Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Aghia Sophia Children’s Hospital, 11527 Athens, Greece
Athanasios Choursalas: Department of Pediatric Cardiology, Onasseio Cardiac Surgery Center, 17674 Athens, Greece
Dimitrios Kouretas: Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, University of Thessaly, 41500 Larissa, Greece
Alexandros K. Nikolaidis: Division of Dental Tissues’ Pathology and Therapeutics (Basic Dental Sciences, Endodontology and Operative Dentistry), School of Dentistry, Aristotle University Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
Elisabeth A. Koulaouzidou: Division of Dental Tissues’ Pathology and Therapeutics (Basic Dental Sciences, Endodontology and Operative Dentistry), School of Dentistry, Aristotle University Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 24, 1-12

Abstract: Over the last decades, human activities prompted the high production and widespread use of household chemical products, leading to daily exposure of humans to several chemicals. The objective of this study was to investigate the frequency of chemicals’ use by children and parents in Greece and estimate the level of risk awareness and understanding among them. A total of 575 parents and children were asked to answer an anonymous, closed-ended, validated, and self-administered questionnaire. One-third of the children and almost half of the parents participating in the study believed that commonly used chemical products do not pose any risk to human health or to the environment, despite the product labelling. The majority of both children (61.8%) and parents (70.6%) were informed about product safety via the product labelling. Around 20% in both groups could not differentiate between systemic toxicity and acute lethal effects depicted by pictograms on the label and milder hazards, such as skin irritation. Moreover, the information on hazard and precautionary statements appearing on the label was very poorly perceived. Therefore, as both children and parents seem not to clearly identify the hazards and risks arising from the use of everyday chemical products, targeted awareness policies should be implemented to support the safe use of household products.

Keywords: chemical hazards; safe use; labelling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/24/12948/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/24/12948/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:24:p:12948-:d:697747

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().