title: Evaluation of biomonitoring data from the CDC National Exposure Report in a risk assessment context: perspectives across chemicals.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Biomonitoring data reported in the National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals [NER; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2012)] provide information on the presence and concentrations of > 400 chemicals in human blood and urine. Biomonitoring Equivalents (BEs) and other risk assessment-based values now allow interpretation of these biomonitoring data in a public health risk context.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  We compared the measured biomarker concentrations in the NER with BEs and similar risk assessment values to provide an across-chemical risk assessment perspective on the measured levels for approximately 130 analytes in the NER.
  
  
  METHODS
  We identified available risk assessment-based biomarker screening values, including BEs and Human Biomonitoring-I (HBM-I) values from the German Human Biomonitoring Commission. Geometric mean and 95th percentile population biomarker concentrations from the NER were compared to the available screening values to generate chemical-specific hazard quotients (HQs) or cancer risk estimates.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Most analytes in the NER show HQ values of < 1; however, some (including acrylamide, dioxin-like chemicals, benzene, xylene, several metals, di-2(ethylhexyl)phthalate, and some legacy organochlorine pesticides) approach or exceed HQ values of 1 or cancer risks of > 1 × 10-4 at the geometric mean or 95th percentile, suggesting exposure levels may exceed published human health benchmarks. This analysis provides for the first time a means for examining population biomonitoring data for multiple environmental chemicals in the context of the risk assessments for those chemicals. The results of these comparisons can be used to focus more detailed chemical-specific examination of the data and inform priorities for chemical risk management and research.
authors.affiliation: Summit Toxicology LLP, Falls Church, Virginia 22044, USA. laylward@summittoxicology.com
authors.forename: Lesa L
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Aylward
authors.forename: Christopher R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Kirman
authors.forename: Rita
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schoeny
authors.forename: Christopher J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Portier
authors.forename: Sean M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Hays
mesh_terms: D002487:Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S.; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D004785:Environmental Pollutants / Q000633:toxicity*; D006801:Humans; D018570:Risk Assessment; D014481:United States
chemical_list: D004785:Environmental Pollutants