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Exploring Exposure Pathways with Chemical/Product Categorical CPCat)Data
Citation:
Dionisio, K., A. Frame, M. Goldsmith, J. Wambaugh, A. Liddell, T. Cathey, D. Smith, J. Vail, AND R. Judson. Exploring Exposure Pathways with Chemical/Product Categorical CPCat)Data. Presented at Society of Toxicology 2014 Conference, Phoenix, AR, March 27, 2014.
Impact/Purpose:
The National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL) Human Exposure and Atmospheric Sciences Division (HEASD) conducts research in support of EPA mission to protect human health and the environment. HEASD research program supports Goal 1 (Clean Air) and Goal 4 (Healthy People) of EPA 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:
Humans are exposed to thousands of chemicals over our lifetimes. A major challenge to risk assessors is to understand how and when chemical exposures occur, and which “exposure pathways” contribute the most. An informatics-driven approach to assigning “product-use” categories to product “ingredients” will help prioritize which chemicals will be given more scrutiny for a target population (life-stage, gender, ethnicity), identifying (a) human activities that result in increased chemical exposure while (b) reducing the dimensionality of hazard assessment to a tangible subset for risk characterization. How chemicals are used is directly related to their potential exposure routes, and in the sense of near-field source apportionment, to the identification of chemical-specific use-to-receptor exposure pathways. We have developed the Chemical/Products Categories Database (CPCat) to explore these pathways. CPCat is both a front-end interface and back-end relational database comprised of chemical “use category” information, including both consumer- and industrial-process based uses for chemicals, using mined and curated data from 17 major sources from multiple countries, including data from regulatory bodies, manufacturers and retailers. CPCat contains information on >43,000 unique chemicals mapped to a set of >850 use categories. Examples are provided of how CPCat can be used to identify potential exposure routes, or prioritize chemicals for high-throughput screening. The full CPCat database is available for public download. The views expressed in this presentation are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. EPA.