The use of epidemiologic studies for the biomonitoring of harmful substances

People are exposed to all kinds of substances, amongst others via food, which can be harmful to their health. To properly estimate the health effects, it is important to determine to what extent these substances are present in the body and to what extent they cause damage. In order to do so it may be helpful to measure concentrations of these substances in body fluids and/or tissues (biomonitoring). If the population is large enough, these concentrations can then be used to estimate the exposure to these substances. Moreover, biomonitoring, in combination with information collected in the epidemiological studies, may indicate which groups of people may have an increased risk of health problems due to the exposure to a specific substance. In the Netherlands a large number of epidemiological studies is conducted in the field of public health. The blood and urine collected in some studies may be used for future biomonitoring of harmful substances. The RIVM has examined four studies to determine whether they are suitable for measuring the exposure to harmful substances in blood and / or urine (biomonitoring). This appears to be the case for all four, to a greater or lesser extent. However, the characteristics of the studies differ, so that not only the substance but also the precise questions of the future monitoring study determine which study is most suitable. For this research it is investigated what requirements a substance must meet in order to be measured via biomonitoring and which biological material is suitable for this. Furthermore, it is described which requirements an epidemiological study should meet in order to qualify for biomonitoring purposes. After that, the most important characteristics of four Dutch epidemiological studies were inventoried. The four studies were chosen because the RIVM has easy access to the data.