Abstract
Biomonitoring has become the “gold standard” in assessing chemical exposures, and has an important role in risk assessment. The pooling of biological specimens—combining multiple individual specimens into a single sample—can be used in biomonitoring studies to monitor levels of exposure and identify exposure trends or to identify susceptible populations in a cost-effective manner. Pooled samples provide an estimate of central tendency and may also reveal information about variation within the population. The development of a pooling strategy requires careful consideration of the type and number of samples collected, the number of pools required and the number of specimens to combine per pool in order to maximise the type and robustness of the data. Creative pooling strategies can be used to explore exposure–outcome associations, and extrapolation from other larger studies can be useful in identifying elevated exposures in specific individuals. The use of pooled specimens is advantageous as it saves significantly on analytical costs, may reduce the time and resources required for recruitment and, in certain circumstances, allows quantification of samples approaching the limit of detection. In addition, the use of pooled samples can provide population estimates while avoiding ethical difficulties that may be associated with reporting individual results.
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Acknowledgements
Entox is a joint venture of the University of Queensland and the Queensland Department of Health. ALH receives an APA scholarship. LMLT is funded by an ARC DECRA (DE120100161). JFM is funded through an ARC Future Fellowship. MM is funded by the INTERFLAME project, supported by the European Union Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreement 295138.
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Heffernan, A., Aylward, L., Toms, LM. et al. Pooled biological specimens for human biomonitoring of environmental chemicals: Opportunities and limitations. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 24, 225–232 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/jes.2013.76
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/jes.2013.76
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