Environmental Epidemiology And Exposome Affects Public Health

Perry Ashilevi, PHCJ 606, Fall 2016 (Instructor: Prof. Handysides)

Environmental Epidemiology and Exposome Exposome is a dynamic concept and it encompasses epidemiology, biology, genetics, public health and toxicology to mention a few. According to Christopher P. Wild, exposome is defined as all exposures from conception onwards including those from diet, lifestyle and environment. The exposome consists of multiple non-genetic factors that contribute to the risk of diseases. It is also a useful tool for health risk assessment as well as determinants of health. However, environmental exposures are highly modifiable and altered over time. Therefore, understanding how it affects public health provides effective interventions to minimize the impact of diseases.

Christopher Wild suggests further that, exposome can be classified into external and internal. The external exposome include social, society, urban environment, climate, contaminants, lifestyle and tobacco. The internal exposome comprises of

It also explains why some population may have different health issues compared to other population in the same environment. This may be attributed to the fact that people are exposed not only to one factor, but multiple factors at a time. Some of the factors that affect exposome include behavior factors, chemical and biological processes. Furthermore, people in the same geographic location may well have similar features however, factors like DNA alteration and chemical processes may be different. To effectively address this health related concern requires data collection and analysis on population epidemiology, environmental exposures as well as biological toxicology. This is a cumbersome process and requires huge funding. For example, the “HERCULES” project focused on the importance of environmental factors on individual determinants of health utilizing the exposome