Topic: Human Biomonitoring in the Frontiers of Environmental Exposure Assessment

Human biomonitoring (HBM) serves as a crucial tool in environmental health, epidemiology, and occupational exposure studies. It involves measuring the concentrations of various chemicals and their metabolites in human fluids and tissues, reflecting exposure through oral, dermal, and inhalational routes from diverse sources such as air, food, water, soil, and occupational activities. HBM can thus reveal the extent of human exposure to various chemicals, and potentially associate environmental chemical occurrence, identified in HBM studies to health outcomes. Moreover, HBM can highlight key influencing factors and main contributors to the potential risk, thereby supporting the reliable risk assessments for human health and informing risk management decisions. This special issue seeks to showcase original research and review articles that focus on HBM studies concerning real-life human exposure to chemical mixtures and to emerging chemicals. We aim to cover a range of biomonitoring scales, from small studies to extensive projects, including vulnerable groups, in different biological matrices, shedding light on exposure trends among populations.. We particularly encourage contributions that offer critical insights into the knowledge gaps in HBM program design related to environmental sources and exposure routes such as dietary and non dietary, and those that identify trends in chemical exposure, including those from potential environmental pollution hotspots.

From an analytical chemistry perspective, this issue will also delve into the quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) of analytical results. Contributions should integrate both targeted and non-targeted analytical methodologies, discussing the measured levels of chemicals with an emphasis on key validation metrics. Furthermore, submissions should address the necessity and applicability of these methodologies in current environmental health research.

This special issue is particularly interested in exploring the multifaceted applications of HBM, especially its utilization and role in the exposom context and human intervention studies. We invite submissions that demonstrate how HBM can be effectively used to assess the risk for human health from the detected mixtures of chemicals in the respective studies and monitor the outcomes of interventions aimed at reducing environmental exposures or mitigating their health impacts. These studies are vital for validating preventive measures and promoting public health initiatives, thus offering valuable insights into the dynamic field of environmental health.

We welcome your contributions to expand the frontiers of knowledge in human biomonitoring and its application in environmental health.

30 Jan 2025