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Interindividual Variation in Source‐Specific Doses is a Determinant of Health Impacts of Combined Chemical Exposures
Author(s) -
Price Paul
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
risk analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.972
H-Index - 130
eISSN - 1539-6924
pISSN - 0272-4332
DOI - 10.1111/risa.13550
Subject(s) - variation (astronomy) , environmental science , environmental health , statistics , econometrics , toxicology , environmental chemistry , chemistry , mathematics , biology , medicine , physics , astrophysics
Abstract All individuals are exposed to multiple chemicals from multiple sources. These combined exposures are a concern because they may cause adverse effects that would not occur from an exposure recieved from any single source. Studies of combined chemical exposures, however, have found that the risks posed by such combined exposures are almost always driven by exposures from a few chemicals and sources and frequently by a single chemical from a single source. Here, a series of computer simulations of combined exposures are used to investigate when multiple sources of chemicals drive the largest risks in a population and when a single chemical from a single source is responsible for the largest risks. The analysis found that combined exposures drive the largest risks when the interindividual variation of source‐specific doses is small, moderate‐to‐high correlations occur between the source‐specific doses, and the number of sources affecting an individual varies across individuals. These findings can be used to identify sources with the greatest potential to cause combined exposures of concern.