Total Human Exposure: Basic Concepts, EPA Field Studies, and Future ResearchNeeds

摘要

Historically, environmental regulatory programs designed to protect public healthhave monitored pollutants only in geophysical carrier media (for example, outdoor air, streams, soil). Field studies have identified a gap between the levels observed in geophysical carrier media and concentrations with which people actually come into contact: their daily exposures. A new approach--Total Human Exposure (THE) has evolved to fill the gap and provide the critical data needed fpr accurately assessing public health risk. The THE approach considers a three-dimensional 'bubble' around each person and measures the concentrations of all pollutants contacting that bubble, either through the air, food, water, or skin. Two basic THE approaches have emerged: (1) the direct approach using probability samples of populations and measuring pollutant concentrations in the food eaten, air breathed, water drunk, and skin contacted; and (2) the indirect approach using human activity pattern-exposure models to predict population exposure distributions.