Key messages

• Hazardous chemicals, environmental risk assessment, public health, wastewater-based epidemiology, non-target screening, mass spectrometry.

Overview

This project evaluates how effectively European regulations minimise the risks posed by chemical use, protecting public health and the environment. By monitoring chemicals in people's bodies across different European regions using a harmonised approach and quality-assured analytical methods, this project will assess the impact of policies like the European Green Deal ↗ and the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability ↗. It aims to understand how chemical exposure varies based on local environment, lifestyle, and diet. In addition, this project tracks emerging chemical risks and evaluates their health impacts, guiding safer chemical practices and preventing harmful substitutions. These efforts help ensure ongoing safety and build public trust in chemical management. The findings will be relevant to policy makers and regulatory frameworks that restrict chemical production, use, and environmental release, as well as those focused on environmental and human health protection.

Demonstrating the effectiveness of existing policies is essential for maintaining public trust and securing the ongoing collaboration of industry and stakeholders. Human biomonitoring is a tool of health-related environmental monitoring with which populations are examined for their exposure to pollutants from the environment.

When carried out across Europe, this tool provides consistent data on the internal exposure of the European population to priority substances within the Partnership for the assessment of Risks from Chemicals (PARC), in different European regions. The results from European partnerships like the European Human Biomonitoring Initiative (HBM4EU ↗) and PARC, offer a baseline and when repeated show trends over time. These data help track the success of initiatives like the European Green Deal's Zero Pollution Action Plan ↗ and the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability.

This project will also identify exposure to new and potentially concerning chemicals, including substitutes for banned substances. Detecting these chemicals in the population can serve as an early warning system of hidden risk. By measuring biological markers that show how chemicals affect the body and linking them to health data, this study will provide insight into how these chemicals, including substitutes, impact health. This will also support efforts to group chemicals and avoid harmful substitutions.  

Achievements & Results

Although the primary project results are expected in 2027/2028, progress has been made in the preparatory phase. Participating countries contributing with human biomonitoring data have been identified, and supporting materials, including questionnaires, have been developed. The selected target groups include children (6-11 years), teenagers (12-17 years), and adults (18-39 years) and a finalized list of biomarkers includes substances like bisphenols, phthalates, PFAS ↗, pesticides, metals, arsenic, and cotinine. Find out more about this here. 

A workshop held in Brussels on on 10 and 11 May 2023 brought together experts to align methodologies and protocols for PARC-aligned human biomonitoring studies. The workshop aimed to ensure a harmonised, consistent approach across participating countries, allowing for reliable and comparable data collection.

Initial studies have begun recruiting participants and collecting biological samples, marking the start of data generation for the project. This phase is crucial to generate high-quality data that will help assess chemical risks and policy effectiveness.

Policy relevance

Only a few countries have integrated exploratory analysis into regulatory frameworks for human, food, or environmental monitoring to support chemical risk assessment. This project identified key scientific barriers that must be addressed to incorporate advanced techniques like non-targeted analysis and effect-directed analysis into monitoring programs and early warning systems. These findings have been communicated to regulatory bodies and policymakers, providing valuable insights to guide priority-setting and assess the feasibility of adopting these innovative approaches in policy frameworks.