TY - JOUR
T1 - Lifelong exposure to multiple stressors through different environmental pathways for European populations
AU - Li, Naixin
AU - Friedrich, Rainer
AU - Maesano, Cara N.
AU - Medda, Emanuela
AU - Brescianini, Sonia
AU - Stazi, Maria Antonietta
AU - Sabel, Clive E.
AU - Sarigiannis, Dimosthenis
AU - Annesi-Maesano, Isabella
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by Seventh Framework Programme within HEALS project (grant number: FP7-ENV-603946 ) and the Italian Twins Registry (ITR) was funded by the Italian Ministry of Health .
Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge the financial support of the European Commission for the HEALS project ( FP7-ENV-603946 ). The project has supported the development of methodology framework in this study and contributed to the population survey of ITR. Additionally, we want to express our special thanks to Christian Schieberle for his contribution of the life course trajectory model. Moreover, we want to express our gratitude to EUROSTAT for providing the EU-SILC microdata, which was utilised as the input data for life course trajectory model. We deeply appreciate the help of other project partners in data gathering and refinement. The authors would also like to thank all the staff of the Italian Twin Register and especially Cristina D'Ippolito for her invaluable contribution in data managing and Miriam Salemi for the excellent assistance in twins' recruitment. Last but not least, the authors are grateful to all twins who participated in this study.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2019/12
Y1 - 2019/12
N2 - Traditional exposure studies provide valuable insights for epidemiology, toxicology, and risk assessment. Throughout their lives, individuals are exposed to thousands of stressors in the environment which are not static, but influenced by environmental, temporal, spatial, and even socio-demographic factors. Existing exposure studies have usually focused on specific stressors for a constrained period of time. In response, the concept of the exposome has been raised, which is defined as the totality of exposure experienced from conception until death. The EU FP7-ENVIRONMENT research project HEALS was launched with the aim of incorporating a series of novel technologies, data analysis, and modelling tools to efficiently support exposome studies in Europe. The authors have developed a framework of modelling tools for estimating the long-term external exposure of selected population groups to multiple stressors through different pathways. As the starting point, the stressors, including electromagnetic fields (EMF) and ultraviolet light (UV) through dermal uptake, phthalates (DEHP, DIDP, and DINP) through inhalation, as well as chromium, mercury, and lead through food intake, have been selected. The simulation for multiple stressors has been realised by developing a probabilistic model that integrates the micro-environment approach, time-activity patterns, and a life course trajectory model. The methodology has been applied to a selected sample of subjects enrolled in the Italian Twin Registry (ITR). The results show that long-term exposures to multiple stressors are affected by factors including age, gender, geographical location, and education level. The methods developed in this paper extended the temporal and spatial scales of exposure modelling in Europe. Moreover, the application of our methods provided a novel approach and crucial input data for future work on environment-wide association studies.
AB - Traditional exposure studies provide valuable insights for epidemiology, toxicology, and risk assessment. Throughout their lives, individuals are exposed to thousands of stressors in the environment which are not static, but influenced by environmental, temporal, spatial, and even socio-demographic factors. Existing exposure studies have usually focused on specific stressors for a constrained period of time. In response, the concept of the exposome has been raised, which is defined as the totality of exposure experienced from conception until death. The EU FP7-ENVIRONMENT research project HEALS was launched with the aim of incorporating a series of novel technologies, data analysis, and modelling tools to efficiently support exposome studies in Europe. The authors have developed a framework of modelling tools for estimating the long-term external exposure of selected population groups to multiple stressors through different pathways. As the starting point, the stressors, including electromagnetic fields (EMF) and ultraviolet light (UV) through dermal uptake, phthalates (DEHP, DIDP, and DINP) through inhalation, as well as chromium, mercury, and lead through food intake, have been selected. The simulation for multiple stressors has been realised by developing a probabilistic model that integrates the micro-environment approach, time-activity patterns, and a life course trajectory model. The methodology has been applied to a selected sample of subjects enrolled in the Italian Twin Registry (ITR). The results show that long-term exposures to multiple stressors are affected by factors including age, gender, geographical location, and education level. The methods developed in this paper extended the temporal and spatial scales of exposure modelling in Europe. Moreover, the application of our methods provided a novel approach and crucial input data for future work on environment-wide association studies.
KW - EMF
KW - Exposome
KW - Food intake
KW - Phthalates
KW - UV
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85072528104&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.envres.2019.108744
DO - 10.1016/j.envres.2019.108744
M3 - Article
C2 - 31561052
AN - SCOPUS:85072528104
SN - 1096-0953
VL - 179
SP - 1
EP - 12
JO - Environmental Research
JF - Environmental Research
M1 - 108744
ER -