Topic: Early-life Exposure to Emerging Contaminants and Child Development: From Toxicity to Risk Assessment

With the rapid economic and social development, emerging contaminants including persistent organic pollutants, endocrine disruptors, antibiotics, microplastics, etc., bring more environmental health risks, and wide concern simultaneously. Due to more serious hazards, hidden risks, environmental persistence, wide sources and complexity of treatment, emerging contaminants require more investigations, especially for susceptible populations or life stages.

Early life is a crucial period for physical, intellectual, social, emotional, and moral development. Mounting evidence suggests that emerging contaminants, whether transmitted across the placental or blood-milk barriers or present in the external environment of infants and young children, may affect child development and even increase the risk of lifelong diseases. Given the complexity of both exposure and individual variability, there is an urgent need for more cutting-edge technologies, methodologies, and the latest findings on exposure detection, toxicity identification, and comprehensive health risk assessments of emerging contaminants. These efforts are essential for effective risk management and promoting a healthier generation.

Scope of the Special Issue:

This Special Issue aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the latest findings in the field of early-life exposure to emerging contaminants and child development, covering a broad spectrum of topics, including but not limited to:

● Association between prenatal and/or postnatal exposure to emerging contaminants and child development disorders;

● Developmental toxicity of early-life exposure to emerging contaminants and its mechanisms;

● Early-life exposure assessment to screen for emerging contaminants requiring risk assessment on child development;

● Comprehensive health risk assessment of early-life exposure to emerging contaminants induced childhood diseases or disorders;

● Methodological advancements in exposure assessment, hazard characterization, and risk assessment during early life;

● Prospects and future directions in research on early-life exposure and child development.

Early life
Emerging contaminants
Child development
Childhood disease
Developmental toxicity
Risk assessment
Exposure assessment