International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health | January 2023 | Vol 10 | Issue 1 Page 45 International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health Maddusa SS et al. Int J Community Med Public Health. 2023 Jan;10(1):45-51 http://www.ijcmph.com pISSN 2394-6032 | eISSN 2394-6040 Original Research Article Public health risk analysis due to consuming Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) containing heavy metals in Bakan village, Lolayan district, Bolaang Mongondow regency Sri Seprianto Maddusa*, Afnal Asrifuddin, Eva Mariane Mantjoro INTRODUCTION Natural resources provide opportunities for business actors to exploit the natural wealth. Mining activities, both legal and illegal, give an impact on quality of water and aquatic biota. Not only decreasing the quality the affected water but also the people who consume the fish that live in the water’s health. Heavy metals such as As, Cd, Hg and Pb that enter the water from mining activities will accumulated in fish body and this accumulative trait also applies in human body. Heavy metals accumulation in human body will have a non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic impact. 1 Non-essential heavy metals (micro elements) have no function in human body, and even very dangerous to cause poisoning (toxic) in humans. According to Widowati et al the effects of heavy metals depends on where the heavy metals bounded in the body and the amount of exposure dose. For example, mercury causes symptoms like tremors, shaking when standing, dizziness when standing, hands and feet pain, and central neurologic system disorders. 1 Research from Gani et al in Bakan village river obtained the following heavy metal ABSTRACT Background: Gold mining activities, both legal or illegal, as well as public activities that live around Bakan River influenced the quality of water. These activities produce waste that contains heavy metals from gold production and derivative impacts of these activities. The waste then flows into the water and pollute the water and biota. People that use the water feel the impact like health problems. Tilapia ( Oreochromis niloticus) is one of the fish in Bakan river that often consumed by people. Consuming fish that exposed to heavy metals in certain concentration is very dangerous for public health. A public health risk analysis is needed to estimate the magnitude of the impact. The research location is in the river on Bakan village, Lolayan district, Bolaang Mongondow regency. The aim of the study is to determine the levels of heavy metals Arsenic (As), Cadmium (Cd), Chromium (Cr), Mercury (Hg) and Lead (Pb) in Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus)’s organs. Methods: The type of this study is observational with Environmental Health Risk Assessment (EHRA) approach, where the number of respondents is 100 people. Results: The results showed that the concentration of Cd (0.01<0.10), Cr (<0.1) and Pb (0.1<0.20) in fish is still below quality standard based on BPOM No. 23 of 2017. Health risk estimates obtained RQ>1 for metal As and Hg. Conclusions: This study has proven that consuming Tilapia is not safe for health. Keywords: Risk, Tilapia, Heavy, Metal Faculty of Public Health, Sam Ratulangi University, North Sulawesi, Indonesia Received: 19 September 2022 Revised: 16 November 2022 Accepted: 18 November 2022 *Correspondence: Sri Seprianto Maddusa, E-mail: sepriantomaddusa@unsrat.ac.id Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20223524