PMID- 18054079
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20081021
LR  - 20080519
IS  - 0160-4120 (Print)
IS  - 0160-4120 (Linking)
VI  - 34
IP  - 4
DP  - 2008 May
TI  - Monitoring concentrations of persistent organic pollutants in the general 
      population: the international experience.
PG  - 546-61
AB  - Assessing the adverse effects on human health of persistent organic pollutants 
      (POPs) and the impact of policies aiming to reduce human exposure to POPs 
      warrants monitoring body concentrations of POPs in representative samples of 
      subjects. While numerous ad hoc studies are being conducted to understand POPs 
      effects, only a few countries are conducting nationwide surveillance programs of 
      human concentrations of POPs, and even less countries do so in representative 
      samples of the general population. We tried to identify all studies worldwide 
      that analyzed the distribution of concentrations of POPs in a representative 
      sample of the general population, and we synthesized the studies' main 
      characteristics, as design, population, and chemicals analyzed. The most 
      comprehensive studies are the National Reports on Human Exposure to Environmental 
      Chemicals (USA), the German Environmental Survey, and the Arctic Monitoring and 
      Assessment Programme. Population-wide studies exist as well in New Zealand, 
      Australia, Japan, Flanders (Belgium) and the Canary Islands (Spain). Most such 
      studies are linked with health surveys, which is a highly-relevant additional 
      strength. Only the German and Flemish studies analyzed POPs by educational level, 
      while studies in the USA offer results by ethnic group. The full distribution of 
      POPs concentrations is unknown in many countries. Knowledge gaps include also the 
      interplay of age, gender, period and cohort effects on the prevalence of 
      exposures observed by cross-sectional surveys. Local and global efforts to 
      minimize POPs contamination, like the Stockholm convention, warrant nationwide 
      monitoring of concentrations of POPs in representative samples of the general 
      population. Results of this review show how such studies may be developed and 
      used.
FAU - Porta, Miquel
AU  - Porta M
AD  - Institut Municipal d'Investigacio Medica, Barcelona, Spain. mporta@imim.es
FAU - Puigdomenech, Elisa
AU  - Puigdomenech E
FAU - Ballester, Ferran
AU  - Ballester F
FAU - Selva, Javier
AU  - Selva J
FAU - Ribas-Fito, Nuria
AU  - Ribas-Fito N
FAU - Llop, Sabrina
AU  - Llop S
FAU - Lopez, Tomas
AU  - Lopez T
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
PT  - Review
DEP - 20071203
PL  - Netherlands
TA  - Environ Int
JT  - Environment international
JID - 7807270
RN  - 0 (Environmental Pollutants)
RN  - 0 (Organic Chemicals)
SB  - IM
MH  - Environmental Monitoring/*methods
MH  - Environmental Pollutants/*analysis
MH  - *Human Body
MH  - Humans
MH  - Internationality
MH  - Organic Chemicals/*analysis
RF  - 91
EDAT- 2007/12/07 09:00
MHDA- 2008/10/22 09:00
CRDT- 2007/12/07 09:00
PHST- 2007/04/23 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2007/10/05 00:00 [revised]
PHST- 2007/10/15 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2007/12/07 09:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2008/10/22 09:00 [medline]
PHST- 2007/12/07 09:00 [entrez]
AID - S0160-4120(07)00197-3 [pii]
AID - 10.1016/j.envint.2007.10.004 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Environ Int. 2008 May;34(4):546-61. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2007.10.004. Epub 2007 
      Dec 3.