To facilitate a shared and common understanding of the inter-related health risks and mitigation opportunities relating to mine dust by creating safe spaces for open discussion by all stakeholders
This objective is central to the success of this network. Research or discourse relating to mine dust has until now been carried out in disciplinary and sectoral silos with little engagement or discussion between different stakeholders, mainly due to perceived positions of distrust and competing interests. A unique three-tiered network structure involving open forums, special interest and working groups will enable constructive interactions to take place, with safe spaces for open conversations about the issues important to all stakeholders. The network will facilitate information and knowledge sharing and will actively engage stakeholders to use and implement insights gained from network activities..
It is clear from the lack of progress made towards solving issues surrounding mine dust that a collaborative, inter-disciplinary research approach is needed to integrate and share knowledge on, for example, potential dust source and dispersion pathways; significant characteristics of dust that adversely impact the environment and health, monitoring methods and practices; measures to manage dispersion and reduce health impacts, etc. This network brings together researchers from disciplines as diverse as occupational health, immunology, engineering, medical anthropology, geomorphology, law and more. A strong emphasis will be placed on involving early career researchers and students from a range of ODA countries to equip them with the knowledge and skills to deal with challenging real-world problems.
To increase community and regulatory awareness of mine dust related health risks and mitigation measures to devise low-cost solutions which will make previously voiceless communities part of the problem-solving team
Communities close to mines may not be aware of the grave health risks caused by inhaling fine dust particles, ingesting contaminated soils or dermal contact with mine dust. They also may feel they have no recourse to address their living conditions. Giving communities a voice, and similarly informing regulators of the risks and mitigation opportunities open to them will result in practical and enforceable regulations accepted by all stakeholders. The network forum will be open to members of community organisations, regulatory bodies and government organisations, and part of this objective will be to work together to devise low-cost solutions, including developing the evidence they need to translate research into policy. Such evidence will include establishing the burden of disease potentially linked to dust-exposures and the syndemic risk factors that contribute to them.
Our Students
Assessing the Distribution, Composition and Potential Human Health Implications of Particulate Matter in the Saldanha Bay Municipality – by Laylaa Ebrahim
It has been approximated that seven million people die due to air pollution, globally. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has reported that 90% of people breathe in highly polluted air and approximately 91% of the world’s population live in areas where air quality is extremely poor.
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Characterising potential health risks associated with coal dust – by Conchita Kamanzi
Coal as an energy source has powered the industrialization of many of the world cities since the 18th century, currently it remains a readily available energy source to meet the demands of several countries.
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Network Management Team
- Associate Professor: Department of Chemical Engineering, UCT
- Deputy Director: Minerals to Metals Initiative, Department of Chemical Engineering, UCT
- Theme Leader (Maximising Value): Future Water Institute, UCT
- Co-convener: Master of Philosophy programme specializing in Sustainable Mineral Resource Development, Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, UCT
- Chief Research Officer: Minerals to Metals, UCT (2 years)
- Contractual Research Officer: Department of Chemical Engineering, UCT (14 years)
- Consulting process and environmental chemist: JLB consultancy (15 years)
- Principal Research Metallurgist: Billiton Pty Ltd (10 years)
- Scientist: Process Chemistry Division, Atomic Energy Corporation of South Africa (4 years)
Shahieda Adams, (PhD)
Co-Director
- Senior Lecturer: Division of Occupational Medicine, UCT
- Clinical Director: Occupational Medicine, GSH/UCT
- Convenor: Postgraduate Diploma in Occupational Health, UCT
- Assistant convener: Master of Medicine programme specializing in Occupational Medicine, School of Public Health and Family Medicine , UCT
- Occupational Medical Practitioner: City of Cape Town (3 years)
- Medical Advisor and Senior Manager: Qualsa@Work; Metropolitan Health Risk Management (2 years)
- Doctoral Research Fellow: Lung Infection and Immunity Unit and Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health Research (5 years)
- Registrarship in Occupational Medicine: Division of Occupational Medicine (4 years)
- Independent occupational health practitioner and consultant (4 years)
- Scientific Officer: Industrial Health Reasrch Group, UCT (2 years)
Johanna R von Holdt, (PhD)
Lecturer, Department of Environmental and Geographical Sciences, University of Cape Town
- Postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Cape Town
- Candidate researcher/technician, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) (2 years)
- Research Laboratory Technician, Texas Transportation Institute (part of Texas A&M University system) (3 years)
- Mineral Services Technician and Chemical Trade Analyst, Société Générale de Surveillance (SGS) South Africa (5 years)
Team Members
Associate Professor Jennifer Broadhurst, Pr. Sci. Nat. (PhD)
DirectorA/Prof Jennifer Broadhurst is Deputy Director of the interdisciplinary Minerals to Metals initiative at UCT (http://www.mineralstometals.uct.ac.za/). With 30 years’ experience spanning the mining industry and academia, she is passionate about research and education on environmental and other sustainability issues relevant to the minerals sector, with a special interest in developing inter- and trans-disciplinary capacity towards addressing concerns like mine dust.
To date Jennifer has: supervised 16 masters and 28 honours-level graduates; published 3 book chapters, 19 accredited journal articles and 13 peer-reviews conference papers; presented/co-presented 73 papers at local and international conferences; written in excess of 100 technical reports. In 2017, Jennifer played a lead role in an international workshop on Operationalizing The SDGs in the Extractive Industries, hosted by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (21 Sept 2017), and was an invited session panel member at the Strategic Materials for a Low-Carbon Future: From Resource Scarcity to Availability conference, hosted by the Veolia Institute and the Oxford Martin School (Oxford, 2-3 November 2017). In 2018, she will be co-convening a session on Mining Water Policy and Stewardship in the Developing Context at the Resources for the Future conference (Vancouver, 16-21 June 2018) and giving a key-note address at the CIM/UQAT Mines and the Environment conference (Rouyn-Noranda,17-20 July, 2018), focusing on the development of resource-efficient approaches for the management of sulfidic mine waste.
Current Positions
Previous Positions
Amaral Filho, J.R., Weiler J., Broadhurst J.L., and Schneider I.A.H. The use of static and humidity cells tests to assess the effectiveness of coal waste desulfurization on acid rock drainage risks. Mine Water Environ, 36: 4329-435, 2017.
Munyongani, V., von Blottnitz, H. and Broadhurst, J.L. A life-cycle based review of sulfur dioxide abatement installations in the South African platinum group metal sector. Sustainability Science, Special feature: Sustainability Science for Meeting Africa’s Challenges. Available on line 19 August 2017.
Broadhurst J.L. Mine Waste: From Problem to Opportunity. In: Hanri Mostert, Cheri-Leigh Young & Dee Bradshaw (eds), Waste & Wealth: New Views on the By Products of Mining, Juta Law (ISBN 978 1 48512 010 0): 24-25, 2016.
Broadhurst J.L., Harrison S.T.L., Petersen J., Franzidis J-P and Bradshaw, D. A Research and Education Framework to Support the Development of a Sustainable and Socially Responsible Mining Industry in Africa. In: Devasahayan, Dowling & Mahaptra (eds), Sustainability in Minerals and Energy Sectors, Taylor & Francis (ISBN: 978-1-4987-3302-1), Chapter 29: 559-572, 2016.
Team Members
Shahieda Adams, (PhD)
Co-DirectorDr Shahieda Adams is Clinical Director of the Occupational Medicine Clinic at Groote Schuur Hospital and a senior lecturer at the School of Public Health and Family Medicine at UCT. An active founding member of the mine dust networking group, she is an experienced occupational health specialist who spans both academia and government, with a joint appointment at UCT and the Western Cape Dept of Health. Her skills in occupational medicine, epidemiology and occupational health policy formulation will be essential to the network’s success.
She has had a long association with the University of Cape Town, where she completed her undergraduate and postgraduate training in occupational Medicine. She is currently a jointly appointed Grade 2 Occupational Medicine specialist employed by the Western Cape Department of Health and UCT. She is the Chief consultant at the Occupational Medicine clinic at Groote Schuur hospital where a diagnostic and clinical service is provided to assist ex-mineworkers with occupational lung disease and also chairs the Review Committee for the Qhubeka Trust which is engaged in assessment and compensation of mineworkers with silicosis and silico-tuberculosis. Prior to this she has performed work for the Asbestos Relief Trust and has been involved in a number of research and capacity development activities relating to the health effects of mine dust and right to compensation for mineworkers. Shahieda is actively engaged in capacity development in her discipline and chairs the Division of Occupational Medicine in the Council for Public health Medicine in the College of Medicine of South Africa (CMSA). She was the Convenor of the 2018 Fellowship exams in occupational medicine run by the CMSA.
Her current teaching responsibilities is that of Convenor of the Postgraduate Diploma in Occupational Health and she is Asst-convener of the Masters of Medicine (Occupational Medicine). In addition she teaches on the Environmental Health Module (Masters in Public Health) at UCT and the Public Health and Environmental module of the MPhil Cancer Science at the University of Stellenbosch. Within the faculty she also teaches at undegraduate and postgraduate levels. Currently Shahieda is supervising : 2 masters and 3 PhD students and has graduated 17 Postgraduate Diplomas in Occupational Health ; published 5 book chapters, 12 accredited journal articles and 15 peer-reviewed conference papers; presented/co-presented at local and international conferences; written 20 technical reports. In 2018, Shahieda co-authored the position paper for the International Commission on Occupational health ”the ICOH Statement on Preventing TB among Health Workers” that was presented at the ICOH conference in May in Dublin.
Current Positions
Previous Positions
Grobler L, Mehtar S, Dheda K, Adams S, Babatunde S, van der Walt M, Osman M. The epidemiology of tuberculosis in health care workers in South Africa: a systematic review. BMC Health Services Research (2016) 16:416 DOI 10.1186/s12913-016-1601-5
Adams S, Ehrlich R, Baatjies R, van Zyl-smit RN, Hartley QS, Dawson R and Dheda KD. Incidence of occupational latent tuberculosis infection in South African health care workers. European Respiratory Journal 2015. DOI: 10.1183/09031936.00138414
Ngajilo D, Adams S. Jeebhay MF. Occupational allergy and asthma in tobacco farmers: a review of literature. Current Allergy & Clinical Immunology. June 2018. Vol 31 (2): 2-9
Ehrlich R, Adams S, Manjra S, Mokoena T, Jeebhay MF. Fate of outstanding COIDA occupational disease claims following closure of the Western Cape Provincial Medical Advisory Panel in 2008 – an audit. Occ Health Southern Africa, 21(6);6-10, 2015
Adams S, Burdzik A, Jeebhay M. How to claim compensation for work-related injuries or diseases. In Mash B and Blitz J eds. South African Family Practice Manual. 3rd edition, Van Schaik Publishers, Pretoria, 2015,161:542-548. ISBN: 9780627031236
Adams S, Ehrlich R, Ismail N, Quail Z, Jeebhay MF. Occupational health challenges facing the Department of Health: Protecting employees against tuberculosis and caring for former mineworkers with occupational lung disease. In: Padarath A, English R, editors, South African Health view 2012/13. Durban: Health Systems Trust; 2013, 5:67-82 (ISBN 978-1-919839-73-8)
Jarand J, Shean K, O’ Donnell M, Loveday M, Kvasnovsky C, Van der Walt M, Adams S, Willcox P et al. Extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) among health care workers in South Africa. Tropical Medicine and International Health (2010). 15(10): 1179-1184.
Team Members
Johanna R von Holdt, (PhD)
Lecturer, Department of Environmental and Geographical Sciences, University of Cape TownDr Johanna von Holdt, a UCT postdoctoral research fellow specialising in various aspects of mine dust. As the UCT mine dust networking group co-ordinator, Dr von Holdt is perfectly placed to coordinate the GCRF Mine Dust and Health Network activities, play an active role in Network discussions and activities, and to subsequently help to implement research directives that result from the Network.
Her research career developed during her time at the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) at Texas A&M University and at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria where she was involved in several research studies on soils and materials for road construction. She also wrote and implemented the ISO17025 quality system in the Built Environment lab at the CSIR. Johanna built on her research experience by pursuing her postgraduate studies at the University of Cape Town and completed her MPhil in 2013 during which she shifted her focus to aeolian mechanisms, processes and impacts. She has developed several successful collaborations during her time at UCT, including providing expertise on the influence of soils and aeolian processes on spatial vegetative patterning as part of a research team based in Biosciences, lecturing on soils in Landscape Architecture, and facilitating the Honour’s field trip in Geology.
Current Positions
Previous Positions
von Holdt, J.R. and Eckardt, F.D., 2018. Dust activity and surface sediment characteristics of the dustiest river in southern Africa: the Kuiseb River, Central Namib. South African Geographical Journal, 100(1), pp.104-121.
von Holdt, J.R., Eckardt, F.D. and Wiggs, G.F.S., 2017. Landsat identifies aeolian dust emission dynamics at the landform scale. Remote Sensing of Environment, 198, pp.229-243.
Cramer, M.D., von Holdt, J.R. and Midgley, J.J., 2019. Causes of landscape mega-ripples: The kommetjies of South Africa. Geoderma, 340, pp.25-37.
Cramer, M.D., von Holdt, J.R., Uys, V.M. and Midgley, J.J., 2017. The present and likely past climatic distribution of the termite Microhodotermes viator in relation to the distribution of heuweltjies. Journal of Arid Environments, 146, pp.35-43.
Cramer, M.D., Von Holdt, J., Khomo, L. and Midgley, J.J., 2016. Evidence for aeolian origins of heuweltjies from buried gravel layers. South African Journal of Science, 112(1-2), pp.01-10.
Eckardt, F.D., Livingstone, I., Seely, M. and Von Holdt, J., 2013. The surface geology and geomorphology around Gobabeb, Namib Desert, Namibia. Geografiska Annaler: Series A, Physical Geography, 95(4), pp.271-284.
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