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Personal Chemical Exposure informatics
Citation:
Goldsmith, Rocky, Chris Grulke, D. Chang, C. Tan, R. Brooks, C. Dary, AND D. Vallero. Personal Chemical Exposure informatics. Chapter 1, McGraw-Hill Handbook of Science & Technology. McGraw-Hill Companies, New York, NY, , 1-9, (2014).
Impact/Purpose:
The National Exposure Research Laboratory′s (NERL′s) Human Exposure and Atmospheric Sciences Division (HEASD) conducts research in support of EPA′s mission to protect human health and the environment. HEASD′s research program supports Goal 1 (Clean Air) and Goal 4 (Healthy People) of EPA′s strategic plan. More specifically, our division conducts research to characterize the movement of pollutants from the source to contact with humans. Our multidisciplinary research program produces Methods, Measurements, and Models to identify relationships between and characterize processes that link source emissions, environmental concentrations, human exposures, and target-tissue dose. The impact of these tools is improved regulatory programs and policies for EPA.
Description:
Chemical Exposure science is the study of human contact with chemicals (from manufacturing facilities, everyday products, waste) occurring in their environments and advances knowledge of the mechanisms and dynamics of events that cause or prevent adverse health outcomes. (adapted from United States National Research Council (2012). Exposure Science in the 21st Century: A Vision and A Strategy, p. 19.) Personal chemical exposure (PCE) is a subtopic within exposure science that focuses on the individual ( see Figure 1. A). PCE primarily look at the following questions: "Who you are?" (the receptor), "What you are doing?" (activity), and "What do you interact with or use in what you are doing" (products, articles, feeding, exercising, hygiene, etc…). Mathematically (deterministically or probabilistically, or both) estimating a receptor’s (target species such as a human) chemical exposure is also achievable by knowing “where" you are (location), and “when” you are there (time), as it contextually limits the choices of “what you are doing” into a tractable probability. Chemical exposure, in general, is a function not only of the chemical, but of the individual receptor’s biology, environment and life-style factors that make up an individuals “personal experience” (See Figure 1. B). By combining individual habits with chemical residue or composition knowledge a full picture of that individual’s personal chemical exposure can be obtained.
URLs/Downloads:
PCEI_GOLDSMITH_ET_AL_052813_4_40PM.PDF (PDF, NA pp, 533.137 KB, about PDF)McGraw-Hill yearbook of Science and Technology
