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Refining the aggregate exposure pathway
Citation:
Tan, C., J. Leonard, S. Edwards, J. Teeguarden, AND P. Egeghy. Refining the aggregate exposure pathway. Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts. RSC Publishing, Cambridge, Uk, 3(20):428-436, (2018).
Impact/Purpose:
Advances in analytical methods and predictive models have contributed to a rapid evolution in the fields of exposure science, toxicology, and epidemiology. The risk assessment community is provided with the opportunity to not only investigate causal relationships between a single stressor and a single disease, but also to systematically identify multiple stressors and biological mechanisms that contribute to a common disease or impact various species. This new opportunity also presents new challenges, such as organization of large, disjointed streams of information from various disciplines into coherent knowledge able to support risk assessment. Frameworks are essential in addressing this particular challenge, as they provide a generic scaffold to aid in the acquisition, organization, integration, harmonization, and application of data. This paper present an Aggregate Exposure Pathway (AEP) framework to support organizing exposure data and several examples of how AEP an be used to support risk assessment are presented.
Description:
Advancements in measurement technologies and modeling capabilities continue to result in an abundance of exposure information, adding to that currently in existence. However, fragmentation within the exposure science community acts as an obstacle for realizing the vision set forth in the National Research Council's report on Exposure Science in the 21st century to consider exposures from source to dose, on multiple levels of integration, and to multiple stressors. The concept of an Aggregate Exposure Pathway (AEP) was proposed as a framework for organizing and integrating diverse exposure information that exists across numerous repositories and among multiple scientific fields. A workshop held in May 2016 followed introduction of the AEP concept, allowing members of the exposure science community to provide extensive evaluation and feedback regarding the framework's structure, key components, and applications. The current work briefly introduces topics discussed at the workshop and attempts to address key challenges involved in refining this framework. The resulting evolution in the AEP framework's features allows for facilitating acquisition, integration, organization, and transparent application and communication of exposure knowledge in a manner that is independent of its ultimate use, thereby enabling reuse of such information in many applications.
