Biological Monitoring in Occupational Exposure Assessment

Course Description:

Biomonitoring can help in exposure assessment of specific chemicals and characterization of exposure pathways. Biomonitoring is especially useful when the chemicals enter the body through inhalation and skin. Recall that traditional industrial hygiene air monitoring can only assess airborne exposures. Biomonitoring may be interpreted at group or individual levels in conjunction with ACGIH Biological Exposure Indices (BEI) values.

This course consists of three modules:

• Module 1 is an introduction to biological monitoring, including a brief description of the basic science behind BEIs. It also includes other topics such as when and how to use biological monitoring and BEIs.
• Module 2 describes the basics of skin absorption of chemicals and how biological monitoring can assess workers' overall exposures.
• Module 3 discusses ethics around biomonitoring and describes the issues associated with privacy and reporting of results. Biomonitoring data is quite different than industrial hygiene data because the specimen came from a worker's body.

Learning Objectives:

• • Explain the advantages of biological monitoring to workers as well as the employers.
  • Understand the importance of biological monitoring sample collection methods.
  • Understand how BEIs should be used.
  • Understand the role biological monitoring plays in the assessment of exposure to chemicals through the skin.
  • Understand the role of privacy and ethics in the collection, analysis, and distribution of results from biological monitoring tests
  • Describe with an example the use of biological monitoring to assess worker exposure.