To assess differences and trends in personal chemical exposure, Oregon State University researchers deployed chemical-sampling wristbands to individuals on three continents.
After they analyzed the wristbands that were returned, they found that no two wristbands had identical chemical detections. But the same 14 chemicals were detected in more than 50 percent of the wristbands returned from the United States, Africa and South America.
“Whether you are a farmworker in Senegal or a preschooler in Oregon, you might be exposed to those same 14 chemicals that we detected in over 50 percent of the wristbands,” said Holly Dixon, a doctoral candidate at Oregon State and the study’s lead author.
The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, is published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
Read more at Oregon State University