[A method to monitor trace elements in the community environment through the chemical analysis of hair].

A number of reports have demonstrated that human hair can be used as a reliable monitor of human exposure to toxic elements in the community or working environment.1-8) In these reports, hair samples were generally collected from inhabitants of different communities or from workers of different industrial firms who had been exposed to a variety of environmental pollutants. In most cases, hair analyses have been performed on an individual basis with the samples collected from a variety of population groups. The differences in trace element content in hair between exposed and nonexposed groups are then evaluated by comparing the mean values of the individual data. Trace element analysis of hair is a task requiring considerable time, labor and expense regardless of the method. Accordingly, when a laboratory tries to analyze samples collected from population groups of several different environments, the number of samples is limited by the facilities available, although, to obtain better estimates of the parameters of a population, ideally sample size should be very large. To monitor different communities using hair analyses, samples should be collected periodically and should be analyzed within a limited period of time. This creates contradictory demands. The present study was carried out to develop a time/labor saving methodology for hair analysis in order to obtain appropriate information on those trace element concentrations which are relevant to the community based monitoring scheme in the event that the analytical values for individual subjects are not in question.