Environmental Health Criteria 214

HUMAN EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT
Chapter 5 is devoted to a component of exposure assessment
related to the collection and interpretation of human activity
patterns. Information on how, where and when people contact
potentially contaminant media is useful for data interpretation,
establishing risk scenarios and identifying activities, locations and
populations at differential risk. The emphasis here is primarily
related to air pollution exposure studies. In the conduct of total
multimedia exposure investigations or modelling analogous information
is needed for the ingestion of water and food, as well as for dermal
contact.
Chapter 6 extends the concepts of the preceding chapters in
discussing models for human exposure assessment. The data requirements
for various pathways and various modelling approaches are presented.
Chapter 7 separates the conceptual first half of the text from
the pragmatic guidelines offered in the rest of the document. The
chapter contains a discussion of air monitoring, water monitoring and
food sampling. These particular fields are rather well developed
individually, if not well integrated into multimedia studies. The
reader is referred to many other resources that can guide the
investigator to details on instruments, sampling methods and
laboratory analysis.
In Chapter 8, proportionally more emphasis is placed on soil and
settled dust sampling. Again, the laboratory methods for metals,
organics and various chemical compounds are readily available in the
published literature. This chapter, then, focuses on relatively new
sampling techniques to quantify in a standardized way the contaminant
levels in soil and settled dust.
In Chapter 9, on microbiological agents, assessment techniques
for commonly encountered allergens, mycotoxins, fungal and pollen
spores, microbiological bacteria and endotoxins are presented. These
agents have been included because of their imputed contribution to
respiratory disease and potential interactions with chemical
pollutants. There is growing recognition that exposure to these agents
in schools, homes, hospitals and office buildings constitutes a
specific risk to atopic, asthmatic and compromised individuals.
The use of biomarkers for exposure assessments is presented in
Chapter 10. Biological samples derived from human tissue or fluids
have been used as markers of both effects as well as exposure (dose)
to a variety of occupational and environmental contaminants. The
chapter describes the applications of biomarkers in exposure studies.
The quality assurance (QA) activities that should be considered
in conducting and evaluating exposure studies are addressed in Chapter
11. Contributors to this document intended to impart their experiences
to improve future exposure study. It is emphasized that QA aspects
must be considered in all components of exposure studies, to enhance
comparability and interpretation.
Chapter 12 presents brief synopses of exposure studies.
Selections illustrate a variety of study designs with different
objectives and target pollutants and populations. Relatively more
emphasis has been given to particles and passive exposure to cigarette
smoke. The evidence is that cigarette consumption has increased almost
worldwide, suggesting that greater attention be given to
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