A09_Exposure concepts and quantification of exposure through different routes

Presentation for HBM4EU Training School in Nijmegen (19-23 November 2018). The aim of this course is to help the trainees to understand the concepts of external exposure. Exposure is ”an event that occurs when there is contact at a boundary between a human and the environment with a contaminant of specific concentration for an interval of time”. This contact may exist through inhalation, ingestion or penetration of the skin surface. According to the definition, exposure is related directly to the pollutant of interest, to the individual, and to the time and duration of exposure (Lioy, 1990). Determining the risk posed by environmental pollution to public health requires a knowledge of five fundamental components: the sources of pollutants, the transport of pollutants from sources to humans, the exposures of humans to pollutants, the doses received by those who are exposed, and the adverse health effects resulting from the doses. Exposure assessment is defined as “determination of the emissions, pathways and transformations of pollutants in order to estimate the concentrations/doses to which humans are or may be exposed. In this course, besides the basic exposure concepts, the methods for estimating exposure from various pathways and routes will be described.