PARC Projects

Provide protection against most harmful chemicals
Tracking human exposure to environmental pollutants over time in Europe
Human biomonitoring
Human health
Time span
-
Potential impacts
  • Policy makers can make more informed decisions based on the insights gained from understanding patterns of internal exposure across time.
  • Showing time patterns offers evidence that strengthens advocacy for policy changes or targeted interventions.
  • Raise public awareness and foster understanding, engagement, and support for key societal issues related to chemical exposure.
Partners involved
KI (SE)
MU (CZ)
NIPH (NO)
REGIONH (DK)
SZU-CZ (CZ)
UBA (DE)
UH (BE)
UI (IS)
ULUND (SE)
ISS (IT)
VITO (BE)
SFA (SE)
Contacts
Hamid Hassen (VITO)
hamid.hassen [at] vito.be
Jiří Kalina (MU)
kalina [at] mail.muni.cz
Overview

This project investigates how levels of internal exposure to environmental pollutants have changed over time across Europe. It builds on data collected from children, teenagers, and adults through previous and ongoing human biomonitoring (HBM) studies under HBM4EU ↗ and PARC. The main goal is to assess exposure trends and evaluate how effective past policies and regulations have been in reducing the public’s contact with harmful substances.

To achieve this, the project brings together partners who already manage studies with repeated measurement cycles or long-term data collections. Each partner will harmonise their data using a shared structure, validate it with a dedicated tool, and then apply common statistical methods using a jointly developed script. When possible, pooled analyses will be carried out on studies with overlapping substances and timeframes to strengthen the results.

The pollutants of interest include phthalates ↗, PFAS ↗, bisphenols ↗, pesticides ↗, heavy metals ↗, flame retardants ↗, UV filters ↗, PCBs ↗, acrylamide ↗, and others. If data gaps exist, stored biobank samples may be used to fill them through new chemical analyses.

The findings will help national and EU authorities ↗ assess the real-world impact of existing chemical safety measures. By showing whether exposure levels are rising, falling or stable, the results will guide future policies, help enforce existing rules, and support public health interventions. Ultimately, the project aims to protect citizens from hazardous substances by providing solid evidence to inform better decision-making.

Policy relevance
  • This project will provide critical data on patterns of human exposure to pollutants, supporting the refinement of key EU and national regulatory frameworks such as REACH ↗, the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability ↗, and the Cosmetic Regulation.

Related Projects

Enhancing the reusability of human biomonitoring data for improved health risk assessment
Leveraging HBM4EU data for chemical safety and zero pollution in Europe
Developing a sustainable European human biomonitoring framework
Filter by
Address chemical pollution in the natural environment
Provide protection against most harmful chemicals
Shift away from animal testing
Biodiversity protection
Developing a system to monitor chemicals in the environment
Enhancing data integration and risk assessment for chemical exposure
Environmental and multisource monitoring: Pilot study on PFAS and endocrine disruptors
Improving the environmental risk assessment for plant protection products
Innovative tools for an early warning system
Monitoring chemicals in wastewater using innovative techniques
Tracking emerging chemicals in animal species: A new monitoring approach
Understanding volatile siloxanes in Europe to support regulation
Advancing the characterisation of human chemical exposome with innovative methods
Advancing tools, knowledge and regulatory options for an improved risk assessment and management of chemical mixtures
Beyond food: Organic contaminants in daily environments
Enhancing the reusability of human biomonitoring data for improved health risk assessment
Establishment of advanced data processing methodologies and bioinformatic tools for a non-targeted screening repository
Harmonising quality of chemical and bio-effect directed suspect and non-target screening methods across fields
Health-based guideline values for indoor air
Leveraging HBM4EU data for chemical safety and zero pollution in Europe
Streamlining data processing methods for suspect and non-target screening
Testing assessment tools for hazardous substances in consumer products and articles
Toxicity of plastic-associated chemicals
Advancing detection mechanisms of hazardous chemicals in food
Assessing chemicals exposure of waste management workers
Boosting data availability for environmental burden of disease calculations of chemicals
Developing and testing new approaches for chemical exposure assessment of infants
Developing a sustainable European human biomonitoring framework
Developing indicators for chemical risk and health impact assessment
Enhancing healthy and safe working conditions in hospitals
Establishing health-based human biomonitoring guidance values
Hazard characterisation of emerging mycotoxins
Human biomonitoring studies on the general population
Implementing human biomonitoring as sentinel surveillance system
Improving chemical screening in human samples
Investigating mono-n-hexyl phthalate (MnHexP) exposure
More accurate health impact assessment methodologies for chemicals
Occupational biomonitoring of emerging chemicals: A new approach
PFAS in breast milk and infant health
Roadmap linking chemical substances and health
Tracking human exposure to environmental pollutants over time in Europe
Tracking PFAS exposure in children across Europe
Using case studies to assess health impact of exposure to chemical substances
Using general population human biomonitoring data to trace occupational exposure
Assessing the relevance of adverse outcome pathways (AOPs) and associated new approach methodologies (NAMs) for human health risk assessment
Demonstrating the applicability of New Approach Methodologies for regulatory use
Harmonisation of the risk assessment of chemicals
Improving regulatory readiness of new testing methods
Innovative testing strategies for the developing immune system
In vitro methods to assess respiratory uptake and toxicity
New tools for enforcing chemical safety in everyday items
New tools to assess fish thyroid disruption
Omics for chemical grouping and read-across
Sex-based differences in susceptibility to liver toxicants
Skin sensitisation and mixtures effects
Tools, criteria and methods for risk assessment
Towards a harmonised approach in chemical risk assessment
Understanding how chemicals can disrupt hormones and reproductive health
Advanced tools to identify metabolism-disrupting chemicals
Advancing endocrine disruptor assessment
Assessing unknown mixtures using monitoring data and new approach methods
Better tools to spot hidden cancer risks
Computational new approach methods based on machine learning and artificial intelligence
Developing toxicity roadmaps
Enhancing chemical mixture risk assessment and regulation
Enhancing the risk assessment of chemical mixtures
Harmonised workflow for human relevance assessment of Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOPs) and New Approach Methodologies (NAMs)
Improving testing methods for thyroid hormone disrupting chemicals
Innovative approaches to assess developmental and adult neurotoxicity 
Innovative testing of chemical effects on the immune system
READYAI: Setting clear rules to assess when Artificial Intelligence can be trusted and used for evaluating chemical safety
Rethinking genotoxicity testing: A non-animal approach
Trusting new ways to test chemicals – the importance of retrospective validation
Advancing chemical risk assessment for diverse populations
Alternative predictive toxicology integrative approaches for chemical safety
Closing data gaps in physiologically-based kinetic modeling and quantitative in vitro to in vivo extrapolation
From emission to impact: modelling chemical pathways to human exposure
Integrating occupational and general exposure assessment
New approaches to assess organ toxicity without animal testing
New directions in systems toxicology for chemical safety
Advancing safe pesticide use through landscape risk assessment
Assessing the effects of naturally occurring toxins on aquatic ecosystems
Benchmarking the environmental risk assessment of plant protection products
Improving chemical risk assessment with new approach methods
Improving environmental risk assessments for plant protection products
Testing less complex pesticide risk assessment models for environmental regulation
Understanding risks from BPA alternatives on the environment
Environment
Health effects
Human health
Monitoring methods
Risk assessment
NGRA
Mixtures
Human biomonitoring
Workers
Streamlining data processing methods for suspect and non-target screening
Streamlining data processing methods for suspect and non-target screening

Tracking human exposure to environmental pollutants over time in Europe

Time span
-
Potential impacts
  • Policy makers can make more informed decisions based on the insights gained from understanding patterns of internal exposure across time.
  • Showing time patterns offers evidence that strengthens advocacy for policy changes or targeted interventions.
  • Raise public awareness and foster understanding, engagement, and support for key societal issues related to chemical exposure.
KI (SE)
MU (CZ)
NIPH (NO)
REGIONH (DK)
SZU-CZ (CZ)
UBA (DE)
UH (BE)
UI (IS)
ULUND (SE)
ISS (IT)
VITO (BE)
SFA (SE)
Overview

This project investigates how levels of internal exposure to environmental pollutants have changed over time across Europe. It builds on data collected from children, teenagers, and adults through previous and ongoing human biomonitoring (HBM) studies under HBM4EU ↗ and PARC. The main goal is to assess exposure trends and evaluate how effective past policies and regulations have been in reducing the public’s contact with harmful substances.

To achieve this, the project brings together partners who already manage studies with repeated measurement cycles or long-term data collections. Each partner will harmonise their data using a shared structure, validate it with a dedicated tool, and then apply common statistical methods using a jointly developed script. When possible, pooled analyses will be carried out on studies with overlapping substances and timeframes to strengthen the results.

The pollutants of interest include phthalates ↗, PFAS ↗, bisphenols ↗, pesticides ↗, heavy metals ↗, flame retardants ↗, UV filters ↗, PCBs ↗, acrylamide ↗, and others. If data gaps exist, stored biobank samples may be used to fill them through new chemical analyses.

The findings will help national and EU authorities ↗ assess the real-world impact of existing chemical safety measures. By showing whether exposure levels are rising, falling or stable, the results will guide future policies, help enforce existing rules, and support public health interventions. Ultimately, the project aims to protect citizens from hazardous substances by providing solid evidence to inform better decision-making.

Policy relevance
  • This project will provide critical data on patterns of human exposure to pollutants, supporting the refinement of key EU and national regulatory frameworks such as REACH ↗, the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability ↗, and the Cosmetic Regulation.
Contacts
Hamid Hassen (VITO)
hamid.hassen [at] vito.be
Jiří Kalina (MU)
kalina [at] mail.muni.cz
Topics
Provide protection against most harmful chemicals
Keywords
Human biomonitoring
Human health

Related Projects

Enhancing the reusability of human biomonitoring data for improved health risk assessment
Leveraging HBM4EU data for chemical safety and zero pollution in Europe
Developing a sustainable European human biomonitoring framework