Mapping Chemicals across Routes of Exposure and Body Burden: Data Gaps and Opportunities for ECHO

摘要

Background: Tens of thousands of chemicals are used in the U.S.; however, there is a paucity of information on the impact of these agents on children's health. Biomonitoring can permit an assessment of exposure through multiple routes; but only when methods are available. Objective: We postulate that published literature, government databases, and other sources contain understudied chemicals that may impact health outcomes of interest in ECHO. Methods: We developed a list of chemicals occurring in environment media from industrial processes and/or found in consumer products to which mothers and children could be exposed and which have the potential for toxicity. We gathered additional information on these compounds through a semi-structured review of peer-reviewed literature and several governmental databases. Factors being considered include: (a) likelihood of exposures based upon the level and frequency of detection in environmental media, (b) levels previously found in human biofluids, (c) predicted exposures from using consumer products, and (d) toxic potency, from published in vivo and in vitro test results, from priority lists of hazardous chemicals, and from predictive toxicity modeling. Results: We used a framework to evaluate the varied data for the numerous compounds to categorize and rank compounds as to the potential level of concern. The resulting categories are 1) compounds recommended for inclusion in ECHO 2) compounds for which we encourage more toxicological or exposure data to be generated, and 3) the use of untargeted assays in select subpopulations to evaluate feasibility of quantifying emergent and unknown chemicals/metabolites as biomarkers. Conclusions: We anticipate that expanding the compounds included in studies such as ECHO will increase the probability of finding chemicals potentially associated with adverse health effects in children.