Estimation of community-wide exposure to chemicals via water fingerprinting and high resolution tandem quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry

Timely and comprehensive assessment of community-wide public exposure to
harmful and toxic chemicals is essential for the prevention, control or mitigation
of exposure risks and for improving health. There is growing, evidence of
association between man-made chemicals present in industrial and household
products and public health outcomes. Current human monitoring approaches are
associated with high cost, are the restricted size of study groups and inability to
gather comprehensive information on combined spatiotemporal exposure to
mixtures of stressors, and their effects. More efficient approaches are critically
needed to identify cause-effect linkages between harmful chemicals and human
health. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) via water fingerprinting provides
a timely alternative to traditional approaches. This presentation will discuss the
development and application of WBE for spatiotemporal estimation of
community-wide exposure to several indutrial and household derived chemicals
including endocrine disruptors such as bisphenol A, and pesticides (e.g. atrazine)
or biocides (e.g. triclosan).