News

Two days focusing on knowledge sharing on monitoring and exposure
A total of 260 experts participated in a PARC event in Paris discussing the work in PARC on human biomonitoring, environmental and multisource monitoring and more.
The annual meeting of Work Package 4 (WP4) “Monitoring and Exposure” was held between 9-10 October 2023 in Paris, lead by the German Environment Agency (UBA) together with Santé publique France (SpF).
The first day focused on project overviews in the 3 sub-areas of the WP (human biomonitoring, environmental and multisource monitoring, innovative tools and methods) and planned activities in the current and upcoming PARC years.
A particularly important achievement is that all the foundations for the PARC aligned studies (harmonized HBM study in children adolescents and adults) have now been laid, the study designs and materials are almost finalized, and the participating national studies have been set. In addition, a number of specific substances from the groups of pesticides, plasticisers, and PFAS have now been identified for study both in terms of human and environmental exposure. New projects included in the new annual work plan have been presented.
Panel debate on regulatory needs
The second day was opened by Benoit Vallet, the president of the PARC coordinator ANSES and Laetitia Huiart, the scientific director of SpF. Both strongly emphasized the high importance of PARC work for the further development of chemicals policy and risk assessment from a French perspective and thanked the WP4 Co-leaders for the excellent collaboration.
In a panel discussion, representatives from three EU agencies responsible for chemicals policy and regulation (ECHA ↗, EEA ↗, EFSA ↗) presented their regulatory needs for human and environmental monitoring data to be used effectively in assessing the risks of chemicals at the European level. They underlined that alignment of PARC work with ongoing/planned decision-making processes is essential for data effectiveness. The HBM4EU project ↗ was repeatedly cited as a good model/example in this regard.
Collaboration within PARC
Other topics discussed at the meeting included collaboration with other WPs and breakout session groups were organised to discuss opportunities and limitations of linking human and environmental monitoring. Based on the discussions in the four working groups, proposals are currently being developed.
The meeting was attended by about 140 participants on site and another 120 online.