To assess human exposure to AACs in all participating European partner countries by market basket analyses
(identification of background concentrations in human food) and a parallel determination of residues in human samples (blood, urine, placenta)
in a highly contaminated and a reference region; to assess the exposure of wildlife populations to AACs and to characterise their effects in
highly contaminated and reference regions.
Different work packages are aimed to provide an assessment of the exposure to hormone-mimicking compounds with androgenic or
antiandrogenic activity in human populations across Europe and also for aquatic wildlife species in a highly contaminated and a reference
area. Due to the nature of the compounds under investigation and their broad usage as industrial chemicals and pesticides it can be assumed
that humans are primarily exposed to these AACs via their food. Consequently, main emphasis for the human exposure analyses will be
laid on the determination of AAC residues in representative human food samples, obtained as market basket samples in all participating
European countries. Additionally, the residues of the same compounds will be determined in body fluids and tissues of a human population
from a highly contaminated European region with comparably low environmental standards and a second population from a more or less
uncontaminated reference area. For this purpose, different sub-groups, defined by age, gender and occupation will be considered. The
sampling of environmental matrices will include sediments and aquatic organisms representing different trophic levels and systematic
groups. This allows to assess not only the exposure to, and transfer of these compounds from abiotic matrices into the biota but also
to analyse species- or group-specific differences and a potential bioaccumulation across the aquatic food chain. Chemical analyses of
the compounds under investigation in these different samples in three independent laboratories of the consortium considering state of
the art analytical techniques with quality assurance and quality control measures will be included.
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