Approaches to mixture risk assessment of PFASs in the European population based on human hazard and biomonitoring data
Wieneke Bil, Eva Govarts, Marco J. Zeilmaker, Marjolijn Woutersen, Jos Bessems, Yanying Ma, Cathrine Thomsen, Line Småstuen Haug, Sanna Lignell, Irina Gyllenhammar, Ľubica Palkovičová, Lucia Fábelová, Janja Snoj Tratnik, Tina Kosjek, Catherine Gabriel, Dimosthenis Sarigiannis, Susana Pedraza‐Díaz, Marta Esteban, Argelia Castaño, Loïc Rambaud, Margaux Riou, Carmen Franken, A. Colles, Nina Vogel, Marike Kolossa‐Gehring, Þórhallur I. Halldórsson, Maria Uhl, Greet Schoeters, Tiina Santonen, Anne Marie Vinggaard
Abstract
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are a highly persistent, mobile, and bioaccumulative class of chemicals, of which emissions into the environment result in long-lasting contamination with high probability for causing adverse effects to human health and the environment. Within the European Biomonitoring Initiative HBM4EU, samples and data were collected in a harmonized way from human biomonitoring (HBM) studies in Europe to derive current exposure data across a geographic spread. We performed mixture risk assessments based on recent internal exposure data of PFASs in European teenagers generated in the HBM4EU Aligned Studies (dataset with N = 1957, sampling years 2014-2021). Mixture risk assessments were performed based on three hazard-based approaches: the Hazard Index (HI) approach, the sum value approach as used by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the Relative Potency Factor (RPF) approach. The HI approach resulted in the highest risk estimates, followed by the RPF approach and the sum value approach. The assessments indicate that PFAS exposure may result in a health risk in a considerable fraction of individuals in the HBM4EU teenager study sample, thereby confirming the conclusion drawn in the recent EFSA scientific opinion. This study underlines that HBM data are of added value in assessing the health risks of aggregate and cumulative exposure to PFASs, as such data are able to reflect exposure from different sources and via different routes.