From Exposure to Risk: Emerging Environmental Pollutants and Human Health

Emerging environmental pollutants, including pharmaceuticals, personal care products, endocrine-disrupting chemicals, microplastics, and novel industrial compounds, are increasingly detected in environmental and biological matrices, raising concerns about chronic population-level exposure and associated health impacts. Human biomonitoring studies and epidemiological cohort investigations have become essential tools for characterizing internal exposure patterns across different populations and vulnerable groups. Advances in analytical methodologies now enable more sensitive detection of contaminants and biomarkers of exposure, supporting the evaluation of exposure–response relationships and environmental burden of disease. However, important gaps remain regarding long-term health effects, mixture toxicity, exposure variability, and causal pathways linking pollutant exposure to adverse outcomes. Bridging environmental exposure assessment with epidemiological evidence is therefore critical to improve risk characterization, strengthen preventive strategies, and support evidence-based public health and regulatory decision-making.The widespread presence of emerging environmental pollutants in air, water, food, and consumer products presents major challenges for epidemiological research and public health risk assessment. Current limitations include insufficient longitudinal exposure data, lack of harmonized human biomonitoring methodologies, uncertainties in assessing cumulative and mixture effects, and difficulties in linking internal exposure biomarkers to disease outcomes at the population level.This Research Topic aims to promote interdisciplinary research integrating epidemiology, human biomonitoring, exposure science, toxicology, and exposome-based approaches to better understand the health impacts of emerging contaminants. Contributions applying advanced analytical tools, cohort studies, omics technologies, and innovative statistical and computational models are encouraged to strengthen exposure–disease associations and environmental burden of disease estimates. By integrating population-level evidence with mechanistic insights, this issue seeks to support more robust, predictive, and policy-relevant environmental health risk assessments.This Research Topic welcomes original research articles, reviews, methodological studies, and short communications addressing population exposure to emerging environmental pollutants and their implications for human health. We particularly encourage epidemiological and human biomonitoring contributions in general and vulnerable populations, as well as interdisciplinary studies bridging epidemiology, exposure science, toxicology, and public health policy. We welcome contributions addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:•  Epidemiological evidence linking exposure to emerging pollutants and adverse health outcomes, including cohort, longitudinal, and case–control studies•  Human biomonitoring in general and vulnerable populations (children, pregnant women, occupationally exposed groups)•  Exposure assessment of endocrine-disrupting chemicals, pharmaceuticals, personal care products, microplastics, and novel industrial compounds in environmental and biological matrices•  Exposome-based approaches and integration of multi-source exposure data•  Biomarker discovery and advances in high-resolution analytical techniques•  Mixture toxicity and cumulative exposure assessment•  Environmental burden of disease and exposure–response modelling•  Integration of biomonitoring data into public health surveillance and risk assessment frameworks•  Policy- and regulatory-relevant research supporting evidence-based environmental health protection. Topic editors: Carina Ladeira, JULIANA DA SILVA, A. Nursen Basaran Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/81933/from-exposure-to-risk-emerging-environmental-pollutants-and-human-health