Although biomonitoring has been used in many occupational and environmental health and exposure studies, we are only beginning to understand the complexities and uncertainties involved with the biomonitoring process--from study design, to sample collection, to chemical analysis--and with interpreting the resulting data. We present an overview of concepts that should be considered when using bio...

A number of exposure guideline values for environmental contaminants are established by various agencies for risk assessment purposes. Biomonitoring equivalents are conversions of external guideline values to internal doses, against which biomonitoring data can be directly compared. Several biomonitoring equivalents have been developed for the interpretation of blood concentrations of environme...

biological indicators are species that can be employed to monitor environmental quality and ecosystem health. different groups of organisms such as plants, animals, bacteria and parasites regularly produce certain molecular signal in response to changes in their environmental milieu. parasites are important tools for providing wealth of information on physicochemical quality, environmental stre...

Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to test differences among metal concentrations in organisms collected in five coastal sites in a reference ecosystem that is Linosa island (Sicily, Italy). Thus, Monodonta turbinata B. and Patella caerulea L. were tested as biomonitors of trace metal contamination in marine coastal areas. The aim of this survey was to evaluate the concentrations of...

BACKGROUND Biomonitoring studies can provide information about individual and population-wide exposure. However they must be designed in a way that protects the rights and welfare of participants. This descriptive qualitative study was conducted as a follow-up to a breastmilk biomonitoring study. The primary objectives were to assess participants' experiences in the study, including the report-...

Biomonitoring of exposure is a useful tool for assessing environmental exposures. The matrices available for analyses include blood, urine, breast milk, adipose tissue, and saliva, among others. The sampling can be staged to represent the particular time period of concern: preconceptionally from both parents, from a pregnant woman during each of the three trimesters, during and immediately afte...

Human biomonitoring investigations have provided data on a wide array of chemicals in blood and urine and in other tissues and fluids such as hair and human milk. These data have prompted questions such as a) What is the relationship between levels of environmental chemicals in humans and external exposures? b) What is the baseline or "background" level against which individual levels should be...