Incorporating Mass Balance Concepts in Total Exposure Studies

摘要

Total exposure studies require the monitoring of personal exposures to pollutantsover all five routes of exposure: (1) Inhaling air; (2) Drinking water; (3) Eating food; (4) Uptake through the skin; (5) Other unique incidents, such as thumb sucking, and chewing or smoking tobacco. To evaluate their potential effect on human health, the exposures via these five routes can be added together as a total applied dose or a total absorbed dose over the period of the study (e.g., mg/kg/day). The authors present three exposure survey designs from the WHO/UNEP Human Exposure Assessment Locations (HEAL) Programme, the NCI/NIEHS/EPA Agricultural Health Study (AHS), and the EPA National Human Exposure Assessment Study (NHEXAS) and discuss their abilities to estimate an applied dose or an absorbed dose of target subjects using a mass balance approach.