Novel Approaches for Assessment of Complex Chemical Mixtures in Evaluations of Reproductive and Developmental Effects
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Developmental and reproductive health is impacted by many different and co-occurring chemical exposures. According to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidance, preferred risk assessment methods for environmental chemical mixtures utilize whole mixture approaches relative to individual component approaches. However, there are challenges in assessing mixture effects in toxicological and epidemiological studies, where detailed information on whole mixtures is often not available. The objective of this symposium is to explore methodological approaches to characterize health effects of exposure to mixtures observed in human and animal studies. Multiple analytic and statistical approaches have been applied in epidemiology and toxicology studies to identify which substances (possibly among a large number measured), are associated with health effects of interest. Mathematical techniques to identify and use data for “sufficiently similar” mixtures or mixture components have also been developed to address data gaps. Novel methods such as these will continue to support informed assessments of chemical mixtures in data poor scenarios. Speakers will demonstrate use of their methods assessing developmental and reproductive health on a variety of environmental chemical mixtures including disinfection byproducts, polychlorinated biphenyls, phthalates, flame retardants, and phenols. From this session, attendees will become more familiar with these novel methods of assessment of complex mixtures and how they can and have been applied to human and animal evaluations.