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HUMAN EXPOSURE ANALYSIS, AN INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE
Citation:
Wilson, N K. HUMAN EXPOSURE ANALYSIS, AN INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE. Presented at Math Department, Duke University, Durham, NC, September 20, 2000.
Impact/Purpose:
The overall objectives of CTEPP were to measure the aggregate exposures of approximately 260 preschool children and their adult caregivers to low levels of a suite of pesticides and organic pollutants that the children may encounter in their everyday environments, and to apportion the routes of exposure and estimate the relative contributions of each route.
Description:
The relatively new and expanding field of human exposure analysis has its genesis in the environmental movement and the interest of scientists and the public in understanding the interaction between anthropogenic and biogenic chemicals and people. The universe is full of chemicals. Most of these chemicals are not harmful to people, animals, plants, and the environment. In fact they are the very stuff of which we and our surroundings are made. A few chemicals may be harmful, provided there is a source, transport in the environment, a receptor such as a person, contact between the receptor and the chemical, and a level high enough to produce a deleterious health effect. If such an effect could occur, then risk assessment and risk management may be necessary. The science of human exposure assessment deals with several distinct aspects that underlie the risk characterization process. These are the source, the environmental pathway, environmental concentrations, human exposures, and dose. There is considerable overlap between exposure assessment and effects assessment in the areas of human exposures and dose.
A specific example of current human exposure research at the National Exposure Research Laboratory is a pilot study on preschool children's exposures to low levels of common contaminants that may be found in their everyday surroundings. This study, "Children's Total Exposures to Persistent Pesticides and Other Persistent Organic Pollutants (CTEPP)," is taking place now in several North Carolina and Ohio counties. Very little data are available on young children's exposures, and without such data on when, where, how, to what, and to how much children may be exposed, scientists can neither understand exposures nor model them to develop estimates of potential risk. Thus CTEPP has two objectives: (1) To measure the aggregate exposures through multiple pathways of a set of preschool children in several North Carolina and Ohio counties to a suite of persistent pollutants in their everyday environments, and (2) To apportion the exposure pathways and to identify and formulate the important hypotheses to be tested in future research. About 260 children will participate in CTEPP. Field sampling began in North Carolina in July 2000. The entire study will take place over approximately three years.
This work has been funded wholly or in part by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. It has been subjected to Agency review and approved for publication.