Innovative Approaches to Exposure and Health Risk Assessment of Hazardous Chemicals

Dear Colleagues,

Occupational exposure studies often focus on assessing inhalation exposure by measuring shift time-weighted-average (TWA) concentrations of hazardous chemicals or estimates of skin contamination. Conventional health risk assessment compares these TWA concentrations with a threshold limit value, e.g., an OEL, to distinguish between ‘unsafe’ and ‘safe’ exposure scenarios. In many cases, however, insufficient information is collected to evaluate the health risks of individual workers associated with these exposure scenarios. First, between-worker TWA- concentration variances and associated intake doses are often unknown, and therefore, there are potential differences in health risks. Second, task-based monitoring is mostly lacking; thus, identifying sources, peak exposures, and tasks most contributing to the TWA concentration is not feasible. Third, intake dose-related health risk estimates have been scarce in occupational health. Fourth, there is growing consensus that individuals' health risks should be approached holistically. Consequently, conventional occupational exposure and risk assessment have severe limitations regarding the exposure pathway and the ability to assess the risk of individual workers. 

This Special Issue aims to attract the most recent advances in multidisciplinary research connected to research in the fields of exposure science, occupational hygiene, and risk assessment in occupational settings. Research articles are invited on topics associated with exposure pathway analysis, far-field -near field and source-receptor exposure modeling, internal thresholds of toxicological concern, quantification of intake, working life exposome, and total worker exposure health.

Prof. Dr. Derk Brouwer
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• exposure pathway
• source-receptor
• toxicological threshold
• risk assessment
• workplace
• exposome