Research Grants Program Office

Background

Exposure assessment is critical for connecting environmental pollutants to health outcomes and evaluating impacts of interventions or environmental policies. Silicone wristbands (SWBs) show promise for multi-pollutant exposure assessment, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), a ubiquitous class of toxic environmental pollutants.

Objective

To review published studies where SWBs were worn on the wrist for human environmental exposure assessments and evaluate the ability of SWBs to capture personal exposures, identify gaps which need to be addressed to implement this tool, and make recommendations for future studies to advance the field of exposure science through utilization of SWBs.

Methods

We performed a systematic search and a cited reference search in Scopus and extracted key study descriptions.

Results

Thirty-nine unique studies were identified, with analytes including PAHs, pesticides, flame retardants, and tobacco products. SWBs were shipped under ambient conditions without apparent analyte loss, indicating utility for global exposure and health studies. Nineteen articles detected a total of 60 PAHs in at least one SWB. Correlations with other concurrent biological and air measurements indicate the SWB captures exposure to flame retardants, tobacco products, and PAHs.

Significance

SWBs show promise as a simple-to-deploy tool to estimate environmental and occupational exposures to chemical mixtures, including PAHs.