Identifying opportunities and gaps for establishing an integrated EDR-triad at a European level

Abstract

It is the explicit objective of the ESBIO project (Expert team to Support BIOmonitoring in Europe) to develop a harmonized and integrated human biomonitoring (HBM) framework within the EU, and to elaborate how HBM can be integrated most efficiently with environmental monitoring and registered health data. Work package 3 of the ESBIO projects aims at developing scenarios for linking biomonitoring data to available data on environmental exposure and population health. Although it is recognized that there is a wide variety of data available, it is often difficult to integrate these different data layers because of differences in database structures, geographical detail and spatial distribution, or most importantly because the data simply were not meant to be interpreted in the context of integrated human risk assessment. This paper briefly explores the available information on Europe-wide environmental quality and health data that could be used in cooperation with HBM. Because ESBIO focuses on the whole of Europe, but also needs opportunities for further refinement on a more detailed local scale, the applicability of geographical information systems (GIS) in environmental health, HBM and human health assessments were highlighted. It was concluded that there is an abundance of information on the presence and behavior of pollutants in the environment for some compartments (e.g., ambient air), while for other compartments, measurements are more difficult to gather, and/or no clearly defined geographically explicit networks appear to be in place.