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What Is the Exposome? Understanding Lifelong Environmental Exposure

The exposome is the total collection of environmental influences a person experiences from conception through the end of life. It includes far more than exposure to pollution or toxic chemicals. The exposome also encompasses diet, housing, occupation, climate, infections, medications, physical activity, stress, discrimination, neighborhood conditions, social relationships, and other forces that affect human biology and health.

The concept was introduced as an environmental counterpart to the genome. Although genes influence health, they cannot fully explain why people develop chronic diseases, age differently, or experience unequal health outcomes. Exposome research attempts to reconstruct the complicated mixture of external conditions and internal biological responses that develops across a lifetime.

Defining the Exposome

The exposome is commonly divided into three interconnected domains:

• The general external exposome includes broad social, economic, climatic, and community conditions.
• The specific external exposome includes identifiable exposures such as pollutants, food, medications, tobacco smoke, occupational hazards, infectious organisms, and consumer products.
• The internal exposome includes hormones, metabolites, inflammation, oxidative stress, microbiome activity, and other biological responses occurring inside the body.

These domains constantly interact. A chemical exposure, for example, may be influenced by a person's occupation, housing, diet, income, neighborhood, and access to health care. It may then alter metabolism, immune function, inflammation, or gene regulation.

Exposome science therefore moves beyond the traditional practice of examining one pollutant or risk factor at a time. It investigates mixtures, cumulative exposure, timing, biological susceptibility, and the relationships among environmental and social conditions.

Measuring Lifelong Environmental Exposure

Measuring an entire lifetime of exposure is extraordinarily difficult. Environments change, people move, occupations shift, and many chemicals remain in the body for only a short period. Researchers consequently combine several kinds of evidence to reconstruct individual exposure histories.

Common exposome-research tools include:

• Blood, urine, saliva, hair, placental tissue, and other biological samples
• High-resolution mass spectrometry
• Metabolomics and other multi-omics technologies
• Wearable environmental sensors
• Passive silicone samplers
• Air- and water-quality monitoring
• Satellite observations and geographic information systems
• Residential and occupational histories
• Electronic health records
• Dietary and lifestyle questionnaires
• Biomarker and chemical-exposure databases
• Statistical modeling and machine learning

Untargeted chemical analysis is especially important because it allows researchers to search biological or environmental samples for thousands of compounds without limiting the investigation to a predetermined list. Repeated sampling can also reveal how exposure mixtures change over time.

No single measurement can capture the complete exposome. Researchers must combine external monitoring, biological measurements, health information, and social data while accounting for uncertainty and gaps in the historical record.

Pregnancy, Childhood, and Sensitive Life Stages

The health effects of an exposure can depend heavily on when it occurs. Pregnancy, fetal development, infancy, childhood, puberty, and old age are periods of particular biological vulnerability.

Prenatal exposures may affect placental function, fetal growth, organ development, birth outcomes, and the risk of disease later in life. During childhood, environmental conditions can influence lung function, blood pressure, obesity, allergic disease, cognition, behavior, and emotional development.

Early-life exposome projects examine combinations of air pollution, tobacco smoke, diet, chemicals, noise, temperature, green space, housing, family circumstances, and neighborhood conditions. Researchers then compare these exposures with molecular changes and health outcomes.

The life-course approach recognizes that early exposures may produce immediate effects, remain biologically embedded, or interact with later experiences. Protective conditions during one period may also reduce the effects of harmful exposures encountered during another.

Chemicals, Pollution, and Environmental Mixtures

People encounter complicated mixtures of natural and manufactured substances through air, water, food, soil, workplaces, household dust, packaging, cosmetics, cleaning supplies, furniture, clothing, and other consumer products.

Chemical exposome research may include:

• Air pollutants and wildfire smoke
• Pesticides
• Heavy metals
• Persistent organic pollutants
• Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances
• Endocrine-disrupting chemicals
• Plastics and microplastics
• Flame retardants
• Solvents
• Personal-care product ingredients
• Drinking-water contaminants
• Food additives and packaging chemicals

These substances do not occur in isolation. Their effects may depend on dose, timing, duration, metabolism, nutrition, genetics, stress, preexisting illness, and simultaneous exposure to other agents. Mixture analysis attempts to identify the combined effects of numerous exposures and determine which components may contribute most strongly to disease.

The Social and Built Exposome

Environmental exposure is shaped by political, economic, and social systems. Income, race, occupation, education, discrimination, housing, transportation, neighborhood investment, and access to services can determine which hazards and health-promoting resources people encounter.

The social exposome includes conditions such as:

• Poverty and economic insecurity
• Structural racism and discrimination
• Housing quality and residential segregation
• Employment conditions and occupational stress
• Social isolation or social support
• Access to nutritious food and health care
• Community safety
• Educational opportunities
• Political and institutional conditions

The built exposome includes transportation systems, land use, walkability, housing density, green space, noise, heat, pollution, and access to public services. These factors can influence physical activity, stress, sleep, respiratory health, cardiovascular disease, and mental well-being.

Exposome research can strengthen environmental-justice analysis by showing how multiple hazards accumulate in historically burdened communities. Community-engaged research also allows residents to identify local priorities, participate in data collection, interpret findings, and advocate for practical interventions.

Occupational and Community Exposures

Occupational exposomics reconstructs exposure across an entire working life. It considers chemical agents as well as noise, heat, radiation, physical strain, shift work, psychological stress, employment insecurity, injuries, and infectious hazards.

Different occupations create distinctive exposure patterns. Agricultural workers may encounter pesticides, fuels, dust, heat, and microorganisms. Firefighters may experience smoke, combustion products, protective-equipment chemicals, trauma, heat, and disrupted sleep. Construction and mining workers may encounter silica, asbestos, metals, diesel exhaust, vibration, noise, and extreme temperatures.

Community exposures may overlap with workplace hazards when contamination travels through air, soil, water, clothing, food systems, or household contacts. The exposome framework helps researchers examine these interconnected occupational, residential, and social conditions.

Microbiomes, Metabolism, and Internal Exposure

The internal exposome reflects how external conditions are absorbed, transformed, and biologically processed. It includes metabolites, hormones, inflammatory signals, oxidative stress, immune responses, microbial products, and chemical compounds circulating within the body.

The human microbiome is both affected by environmental exposure and capable of changing the way chemicals behave. Gut microorganisms may alter the absorption, toxicity, metabolism, and elimination of environmental compounds. Diet, medications, infection, sanitation, stress, and pollution can also reshape microbial communities.

Metabolomics allows researchers to measure large numbers of small molecules in biological samples. These molecular patterns may provide evidence of diet, pollution, medications, tobacco use, microbial activity, stress, and disease processes. Epigenetic changes can likewise serve as potential records of environmental influence on gene regulation.

Exposome Research and Chronic Disease

Exposome research has been applied to many diseases and organ systems, including:

• Cancer
• Cardiovascular disease
• Asthma and chronic respiratory disease
• Diabetes and obesity
• Liver and kidney disease
• Autoimmune and inflammatory disorders
• Allergic disease
• Skin aging and dermatological disorders
• Oral and gastrointestinal disease
• Dementia and neurodegenerative disease
• Frailty and biological aging
• Mental-health and developmental conditions

Chronic diseases often arise from multiple interacting causes rather than a single exposure. Pollution, diet, physical activity, stress, neighborhood conditions, occupation, infections, and social inequality may influence overlapping biological pathways. This helps explain why several chronic conditions frequently occur in the same person.

Exposome studies can also compare environmental and genetic contributions to health. The purpose is not to dismiss genetics but to develop a more complete understanding of how genes and environments interact throughout life.

Mental Health and the Exposome

The psychiatric or mental-health exposome applies the life-course framework to psychological well-being and mental illness. Relevant exposures may include childhood adversity, trauma, discrimination, pollution, noise, infection, nutrition, substance use, housing insecurity, climate disasters, neighborhood deprivation, digital environments, and social isolation.

Protective exposures are equally important. Green space, physical activity, restorative environments, stable housing, social connection, clean air, adequate sleep, and community resources may support resilience and mental health.

Mental-health exposomics examines how these conditions interact during sensitive developmental periods and how they become biologically embedded through stress responses, immune activity, metabolism, sleep disruption, and other pathways.

Data, Technology, and Research Challenges

Exposome datasets can contain thousands of correlated variables measured repeatedly across many years. Researchers use exposure-wide association studies, Bayesian models, network analysis, causal-inference methods, geospatial modeling, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to identify meaningful patterns.

Major scientific challenges include:

• Incomplete lifetime exposure records
• Short-lived chemicals that are difficult to detect
• Changing residences and occupations
• Correlated exposures
• Confounding and reverse causation
• Differences in individual susceptibility
• Limited representation of some populations and regions
• Difficulty distinguishing correlation from causation
• Lack of standardized terminology and laboratory methods
• Integrating environmental, clinical, molecular, and social data

International research networks and shared databases are being developed to improve consistency, interoperability, replication, and access to exposure information.

Ethical, Legal, and Privacy Concerns

Exposome research can involve location histories, biological samples, medical records, occupational information, consumer behavior, and sensitive social data. These records may reveal intimate details about individuals, families, workplaces, and communities.

Important concerns include informed consent, surveillance, data ownership, privacy, discrimination, responsibility for environmental harm, and the possible misuse of exposure information by employers, insurers, governments, or commercial organizations.

Researchers must also avoid placing responsibility solely on individuals when harmful exposures result from industrial practices, discriminatory policies, unsafe working conditions, inadequate regulation, or unequal access to healthy environments.

Communities should have meaningful opportunities to shape research priorities, understand findings, and benefit from the knowledge produced from their data.

From Exposome Research to Public-Health Action

The ultimate value of exposome science lies in prevention. Unlike inherited genetic variation, many environmental and social risks can be reduced through regulation, workplace protections, cleaner technologies, safer products, improved housing, better urban design, and public-health programs.

Potential applications include:

• Identifying preventable causes of disease
• Detecting vulnerable life stages
• Improving chemical and mixture risk assessment
• Designing healthier cities and workplaces
• Reducing unequal exposure burdens
• Developing personalized prevention strategies
• Monitoring emerging environmental threats
• Evaluating the health effects of policy changes
• Identifying protective environmental conditions

Exposome evidence can help shift health policy from treating disease after it appears toward preventing harmful exposure before illness develops.

Conclusion

The exposome provides a broad framework for understanding how environments become biology. It recognizes that health is shaped by a lifetime of interacting chemical, physical, biological, behavioral, occupational, climatic, and social conditions.

Although measuring the complete exposome remains impossible, advances in sensors, biomarkers, mass spectrometry, multi-omics, geographic analysis, and computational science are making exposure histories increasingly visible. The field also highlights the importance of timing, mixtures, social inequality, environmental justice, and protective surroundings.

By connecting individual biology with workplaces, communities, ecosystems, and public policy, exposome research offers a more complete account of disease causation. Its greatest promise is not merely to describe environmental risk, but to identify practical opportunities for creating healthier and more equitable conditions throughout life.

General Introductions and Recent Developments

A Large-Scale Look at the Exposome

| Harvard Medical School | Harvard Medical School News | March 18, 2026

Explains how researchers are using large population datasets to investigate the combined environmental, behavioral, and social exposures that influence health throughout life.

The Exposome Explained: How Lifetime Environmental Exposure Shapes Health

| Texas A&M School of Public Health | Texas A&M University | 2026

Introduces the exposome as the accumulation of chemical, physical, biological, behavioral, and social influences experienced from conception through adulthood.

Advancing Exposomics: From Concept to Practice in Environmental Health Research

| Alison Motsinger-Reif et al. | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2025

Describes efforts to turn the exposome from a broad scientific idea into standardized methods, datasets, laboratories, and public-health applications.

Cardiovascular Risk Posed by the Exposome

| Andreas Daiber et al. | Atherosclerosis | 2025

Examines how air pollution, noise, temperature, stress, toxic metals, and lifestyle factors combine to influence cardiovascular disease.

Environmental Exposures and Incidence of Common Diseases

| Austin Argentieri et al. | Nature Medicine | 2025

Uses UK Biobank data to compare environmental and genetic contributions to premature mortality, aging, and major chronic diseases.

Exposome Research Comes of Age

| Carolyn Beans | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 2025

Surveys the rapid development of exposome science and the technologies being used to connect lifetime environmental conditions with disease.

Fetal Development and the Air-Pollution Exposome

| E. A. Abarca-Castro et al. | Environmental Research | 2025

Explores how complex mixtures of air pollutants may affect fetal development and health during the critical first thousand days of life.

The Exposome and Human Health

| Multiple Authors | Environmental Science & Technology | 2025

Reviews the physical, chemical, biological, behavioral, and psychosocial factors incorporated into modern definitions of the human exposome.

Exploring the Link Between the Pediatric Exposome, Asthma, and Executive Function

| C. S. Alcala et al. | Frontiers in Public Health | 2024

Reviews how environmental exposures may connect childhood asthma with changes in attention, memory, self-control, and other executive functions.

Humanity and the Environment: Moving Exposome Research from Information to Action

| International Agency for Research on Cancer | IARC | 2024

Presents an international symposium devoted to applying exposome discoveries to disease prevention, public health, policy, and environmental justice.

Putting the Exposome into Practice

| Yolaine Fayet et al. | Social Science & Medicine | 2024

Evaluates the promises, methods, limitations, and geographical gaps found in major European exposome research projects.

The Exposome: Exposure of a Lifetime

| Laure Cailloce | CNRS News | January 23, 2023

Provides an accessible account of attempts to reconstruct environmental exposures from embryonic development through old age.

Exposomics: The Science of the Totality of Exposures

| Gary W. Miller | Annual Review of Pharmacology and Toxicology | 2023

Reviews the scientific principles, analytical technologies, and health applications underlying the systematic study of the exposome.

The Exposome Concept: How Has It Changed Our Understanding of Environmental Causes of Respiratory Disease?

| Alice Guillien et al. | Breathe | 2023

Explains how exposome research has expanded respiratory epidemiology beyond the traditional study of one pollutant or risk factor at a time.

Defining the Exposome

A Review on the Application of the Exposome Paradigm to Aging

| E. Ding et al. | Human Genomics | 2022

Discusses how lifelong environmental conditions interact with biological aging, age-related vulnerability, and chronic disease.

Assessing How Social Exposures Are Integrated in Exposome Research

| Laura Neufcourt et al. | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2022

Reviews whether exposome studies adequately incorporate social circumstances and how social variables are analyzed alongside chemical and physical exposures.

Exposome and Social Vulnerability

| Séverine Deguen et al. | International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health | 2022

Examines how poverty, discrimination, housing, occupation, neighborhood conditions, and other social forces can shape environmental exposure across life.

Multi-Omics Signatures of the Human Early-Life Exposome

| Léa Maitre et al. | Nature Communications | 2022

Connects prenatal and childhood exposures with changes in DNA methylation, proteins, gene expression, and metabolites.

The Exposome in the Era of the Quantified Self

| Chirag J. Patel | Annual Review of Biomedical Data Science | 2022

Considers how digital devices, personal monitoring, electronic health records, and molecular measurements could support individualized exposure histories.

A Brief Introduction to the Exposome and Human Health

| Mark Lucock et al. | Exploratory Research and Hypothesis in Medicine | 2021

Introduces internal, specific external, and general external exposome domains and considers their biological and evolutionary significance.

Defining the Scope of Exposome Studies and Research Needs

| Peng Zhang et al. | Environmental Science & Technology Letters | 2021

Compares top-down, bottom-up, and functional approaches to exposome research and identifies measurement and interpretation challenges.

The Exposome: A Prime Environmental Exposure Concept

| Martine Vrijheid et al. | International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health | 2021

Discusses the evolution of exposome terminology and its value for studying mixtures, life-course exposures, and biological responses.

A Vision for Exposome Epidemiology

| Dean P. Jones et al. | American Journal of Epidemiology | 2020

Proposes a framework for using untargeted chemical measurements and biological-response indicators to discover previously unrecognized causes of disease.

The Exposome and Health: Where Chemistry Meets Biology

| Roel Vermeulen et al. | Science | 2020

Provides a major overview of how exposure science, analytical chemistry, epidemiology, and molecular biology converge in exposome research.

The Exposome Paradigm in Human Health

| Michelle M. Niedzwiecki et al. | Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology | 2017

Reviews how high-resolution metabolomics and other omics technologies can reveal the biological imprint of environmental exposure.

The Exposome Research Paradigm: An Opportunity to Understand the Environmental Basis for Human Health and Disease

| Germaine M. Buck Louis et al. | Current Environmental Health Reports | 2017

Describes the exposome as a framework for studying complex exposure combinations, vulnerable life stages, and disease development.

The Exposome Concept: A Challenge and a Potential Driver for Environmental Health Research

| Valérie Siroux et al. | European Respiratory Review | 2016

Reviews the scientific opportunities and practical difficulties involved in measuring lifetime exposures and linking them with respiratory health.

The Exposome: A Primer

| Gary W. Miller and Dean P. Jones | Environmental Health | 2016

Offers a concise explanation of exposome terminology, exposure categories, biological responses, and research strategies.

The Exposome: Embracing the Complexity for Discovery in Environmental Health

| Yue Cui et al. | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2016

Argues that environmental-health research must embrace mixtures, interactions, timing, and biological complexity to understand disease causation.

Use of the Exposome in the Practice of Epidemiology

| D. Gayle DeBord et al. | American Journal of Epidemiology | 2016

Discusses how epidemiologists can incorporate comprehensive exposure histories into population research and disease prevention.

An Integrated Approach to the Exposome

| Stephen M. Rappaport and Martyn T. Smith | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2012

Proposes studying chemicals circulating in the body regardless of whether they originate from pollution, diet, drugs, microbes, or metabolism.

Characterizing Exposomes: Tools for Measuring Personal Environmental Exposures

| Kellyn S. Betts | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2012

Surveys sensors, biomarkers, geographic tools, and other emerging technologies designed to measure individual exposure.

The Exposome: From Concept to Utility

| Christopher P. Wild | International Journal of Epidemiology | 2012

Reassesses the original exposome proposal and explains how it can improve understanding of environmental causes of chronic disease.

Environment-Wide Association Studies

| Chirag J. Patel et al. | PLOS ONE | 2010

Introduces an environment-wide method for screening many environmental factors for possible associations with disease.

Complementing the Genome with an Exposome

| Christopher P. Wild | Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention | 2005

Introduces the exposome concept as the totality of environmental exposures experienced from conception onward and calls for better exposure measurement.

Exposome Concepts and Frameworks

Understanding the Exposome: Tracking How the Environment Affects Health

| National Institutes of Health | NIH Research Matters | June 9, 2026

Explains how scientists measure the combined chemical, physical, biological, behavioral, and social forces that affect people from before birth through old age.

The Environment Can Be the Problem, but It Can Also Be the Solution

| Omar Hahad et al. | Environment International | 2024

Expands the exposome concept to include health-promoting conditions such as green space, physical activity, social connection, clean air, and restorative environments.

A New Conceptual Framework for the Social Exposome

| H. Gudi-Mindermann et al. | Environmental Research | 2023

Develops a framework connecting social determinants, environmental inequality, biological responses, and health across the life course.

Community-Level Exposomics: A Population-Centered Approach

| Jeanette A. Stingone et al. | Exposome | 2023

Proposes studying exposures at the community level so that exposome science better addresses public-health priorities, structural conditions, and environmental injustice.

Exposomics as a Tool to Investigate Differences in Health and Disease

| M. L. Bucher et al. | Exposome | 2023

Examines how exposomics can help explain why disease patterns differ among populations, places, and demographic groups.

Charting the Landscape of the Environmental Exposome

| X. Wei et al. | iMeta | 2022

Maps the environmental and humanistic sources of exposure and reviews analytical strategies for studying their combined health effects.

The Exposome and Toxicology: A Win-Win Collaboration

| Robert Barouki et al. | Toxicological Sciences | 2022

Explains how toxicology can strengthen exposome research through mixture testing, adverse-outcome pathways, mechanistic studies, and causal evidence.

The Exposome Applied

| Fenna C. M. Sillé | American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine | 2022

Discusses the practical application of exposome science to respiratory research and the challenge of defining total environmental exposure.

Exposome in Human Health: Utopia or Wonderland?

| M. Fang et al. | Innovation | 2021

Evaluates the scientific promise of exposomics while emphasizing critical exposure windows, technical limits, and the difficulty of measuring an entire lifetime.

Exposome: A New Field, a New Journal

| Gary W. Miller | Exposome | 2021

Introduces exposomics as an interdisciplinary field devoted to understanding how complex environmental conditions shape biology and disease.

Measuring the Exposome

Untargeted High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry for Exposome Research

| Multiple Authors | Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology | 2023

Explains how broad chemical screening can detect pollutants, medications, food compounds, consumer-product chemicals, and previously unidentified exposures.

Precision Environmental-Health Monitoring by Longitudinal Exposome and Multi-Omics Profiling

| Peng Gao et al. | Genome Research | 2022

Uses repeated biological sampling to monitor changing environmental chemicals, molecular responses, and health indicators within individuals.

State-of-the-Art Methods for Exposure–Health Studies

| Léa Maitre et al. | Environment International | 2022

Reviews statistical models and multi-omics approaches used to study numerous environmental exposures and their biological effects.

High-Resolution Metabolomics to Measure the Exposome

| Dean P. Jones | Current Opinion in Biotechnology | 2021

Explains how small molecules in blood and other biological samples can provide clues about environmental exposures and biological responses.

Risk-Based Chemical Ranking and Generating a Human Exposome Database

| Feng Zhao et al. | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2021

Describes a database containing thousands of chemicals ranked according to potential exposure and health hazards.

Utilizing a Biology-Driven Approach to Map the Exposome

| Ming Kei Chung et al. | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2021

Proposes beginning with biological pathways and molecular networks to identify environmental exposures involved in disease.

Wearable Sensors for Assessing the Exposome

| Multiple Authors | Environment International | 2021

Reviews wearable technologies that monitor air pollution, temperature, noise, movement, location, and physiological responses in everyday life.

Analyzing Metabolomics Data for Environmental Health and Exposome Research

| Y. Cai et al. | Methods in Molecular Biology | 2020

Provides analytical guidance for processing metabolomics data and identifying molecular patterns associated with environmental exposures.

Metabolic Signatures of the Exposome

| Matej Orešič et al. | Metabolites | 2020

Reviews metabolic changes produced by environmental chemicals and their potential use as biomarkers of exposure and disease risk.

Personal Exposure Monitoring and the Exposome

| Multiple Authors | Environment International | 2020

Examines how portable monitors and location tracking can reduce errors caused by estimating exposures from residential addresses alone.

The Human Exposome and Its Measurement

| Stephen M. Rappaport | Annual Review of Pharmacology and Toxicology | 2020

Reviews strategies for measuring chemicals and biological signals inside the body as an integrated record of exposure.

Exposome-Explorer 2.0

| Vanessa Neveu et al. | Database | 2019

Describes an expanded database of biomarkers related to diet, pollutants, contaminants, and cancer risk.

A Human Exposome Cloud Using Wearable Samplers

| Chao Jiang et al. | Cell | 2018

Uses wearable sampling devices to reveal the diverse airborne chemicals and microorganisms encountered by individuals.

Exposure-Wide Association Studies and the Exposome

| Chirag J. Patel | Annual Review of Public Health | 2018

Reviews statistical methods for screening many exposures while controlling false discoveries, confounding, and correlated variables.

High-Resolution Metabolomics of the Human Exposome

| Dean P. Jones | Cell Metabolism | 2018

Explains how untargeted metabolomics can detect thousands of environmental and internally generated chemicals in human samples.

A Systematic Comparison of Linear Regression Methods for Exposome Studies

| Lydiane Agier et al. | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2016

Compares statistical methods for identifying health associations within large collections of highly correlated environmental exposures.

Advancing Exposure Science Through Chemical Data Collection

| C. J. Grondin et al. | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2016

Describes informatics resources that help researchers organize chemical, toxicity, exposure, and biological data.

Exposome-Explorer: A Database of Biomarkers of Exposure

| Vanessa Neveu et al. | Database | 2016

Introduces a publicly accessible resource cataloging biomarkers used to measure dietary factors, pollutants, and contaminants.

Metabolomics and the Exposome

| Stephen M. Rappaport et al. | Annual Review of Analytical Chemistry | 2014

Explains how metabolomics can identify exposure-related chemicals and biochemical changes without limiting analysis to predetermined pollutants.

The Blood Exposome and Its Role in Discovering Causes of Disease

| Stephen M. Rappaport et al. | Environmental Science & Technology | 2014

Presents blood as a dynamic medium containing chemicals from pollution, diet, medications, microbes, and normal metabolism.

Meeting Report: Exposome Research and Exposure Biology

| Multiple Authors | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2013

Summarizes scientific priorities for measuring external exposures, internal chemical burdens, and downstream biological effects.

Biomarkers and the Human Exposome

| Martyn T. Smith et al. | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2012

Discusses how biomarkers can connect environmental agents with absorbed dose, biological response, and disease processes.

Sequencing the Exposome

| Stephen M. Rappaport | Environmental Science & Technology | 2012

Proposes systematic chemical profiling as an environmental counterpart to sequencing the human genome.

The Occupational Exposome

| Martyn T. Smith et al. | Annals of Occupational Hygiene | 2012

Applies the exposome concept to workplace hazards accumulated over an entire working life.

Exposure Biology and the Exposome

| Stephen M. Rappaport | Nature Biotechnology | 2011

Describes emerging technologies for measuring environmental chemicals, metabolites, proteins, and other biological indicators.

Pregnancy, Childhood, and the Life Course

Environmental Exposures in Early Life and General Health in Childhood

| Imane Amine et al. | Environmental Health | 2023

Connects more than 150 prenatal and childhood exposures with a combined score of cardiometabolic, respiratory, allergic, and mental health.

Maternal Exposome and Placental Function

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2022

Investigates how environmental conditions affect placental development, inflammation, nutrient transfer, hormones, and fetal protection.

Multi-Omics Analysis of the Early-Life Exposome

| Léa Maitre et al. | Nature Communications | 2022

Studies how more than 100 environmental exposures are reflected across DNA methylation, gene expression, proteins, and metabolites.

Prenatal Exposome and Birth Outcomes

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2022

Examines how mixtures of chemical, social, climatic, lifestyle, and neighborhood conditions may influence fetal growth and gestation.

Early-Life Exposome and Neurodevelopment

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2021

Reviews associations between prenatal and childhood environments and cognition, attention, behavior, language, and neurological development.

Early-Life Exposome and Puberty

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2021

Examines how nutrition, body composition, endocrine-disrupting chemicals, stress, and social environments may influence pubertal timing.

Early-Life Environmental Exposures and Childhood Obesity

| Martine Vrijheid et al. | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2020

Assesses numerous prenatal and childhood exposures simultaneously to identify factors associated with childhood obesity.

Early-Life Exposome and Childhood Allergy

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2020

Considers how microbes, allergens, air pollution, diet, tobacco smoke, chemicals, and social conditions shape allergic disease.

Early-Life Environmental Exposures and Child Respiratory Health

| Inserm | Inserm Newsroom | February 6, 2019

Reports findings connecting prenatal and postnatal environmental pollutants with reduced lung function in school-age children.

Early-Life Exposome and Childhood Behavior

| Maribel Casas et al. | Environment International | 2019

Investigates associations between multiple environmental conditions and behavioral or emotional development in children.

Early-Life Exposome and Lung Function in Children

| Lydiane Agier et al. | The Lancet Planetary Health | 2019

Examines dozens of prenatal and childhood exposures to determine how they may collectively influence respiratory development.

Early-Life Exposome and Lung Function in European Children

| Lydiane Agier et al. | The Lancet Planetary Health | 2019

Evaluates numerous prenatal and postnatal exposures in relation to lung function among children in European birth cohorts.

The Early-Life Exposome and Childhood Allergic Disease

| Multiple Authors | Allergy | 2019

Considers how air pollution, tobacco smoke, diet, chemicals, microbes, and social conditions may jointly affect childhood allergy.

The Early-Life Exposome and Childhood Blood Pressure

| Charline Warembourg et al. | Journal of the American College of Cardiology | 2019

Evaluates multiple pregnancy and childhood exposures in relation to blood pressure and cardiovascular risk in children.

Early-Life Exposome and Child Cognitive Development

| Léa Maitre et al. | Environment International | 2018

Studies how chemical, social, lifestyle, and built-environment exposures may affect childhood cognition.

The Human Early-Life Exposome Study

| Léa Maitre et al. | BMJ Open | 2018

Describes the HELIX population, exposure measurements, biological samples, health assessments, and early-life research design.

The Urban Exposome During Pregnancy and Childhood

| Payam Dadvand et al. | Environment International | 2018

Examines traffic, air pollution, noise, green space, temperature, and neighborhood characteristics during sensitive developmental periods.

Prenatal Exposures and the Placental Exposome

| Multiple Authors | Placenta | 2015

Discusses the placenta as both a target of environmental exposure and a potential record of conditions experienced before birth.

The Developmental Exposome

| Multiple Authors | Environmental Research | 2015

Applies the exposome framework to fetal development, infancy, childhood, and other periods of heightened biological sensitivity.

The Pregnancy Exposome

| Oliver Robinson and Martine Vrijheid | Current Environmental Health Reports | 2015

Explains why pregnancy is a crucial period for exposome research and how prenatal exposures can influence lifelong health.

The HELIX Human Early-Life Exposome Project

| Martine Vrijheid et al. | Environmental Health | 2014

Describes a major European project created to measure many environmental exposures during pregnancy and childhood.

The Human Early-Life Exposome Project: Rationale and Design

| Martine Vrijheid et al. | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2014

Introduces a European collaboration created to study combined environmental exposures during pregnancy and childhood.

The Pediatric Exposome

| Multiple Authors | Current Problems in Pediatric and Adolescent Health Care | 2014

Reviews environmental influences on child health and emphasizes the importance of timing, mixtures, and cumulative exposure.

Children’s Health and the Exposome

| Multiple Authors | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2013

Explains why children’s changing physiology, behaviors, diets, and surroundings require a life-stage approach to exposure assessment.

Disease and Organ-System Applications

The Cancer Exposome

| Multiple Authors | Cancer Letters | 2023

Reviews environmental, occupational, dietary, infectious, hormonal, and lifestyle influences that may contribute to cancer over time.

The Cardiovascular Exposome

| Aruni Bhatnagar | Circulation Research | 2022

Reviews how pollution, noise, stress, climate, diet, smoking, and neighborhood conditions combine to affect cardiovascular health.

The Neuroexposome

| Multiple Authors | Environmental Research | 2022

Applies the exposome concept to brain development, neurodegeneration, cognition, mental health, and neurological disease.

The Respiratory Exposome

| Multiple Authors | European Respiratory Review | 2022

Examines how pollution, allergens, microbes, smoking, occupation, climate, and social conditions collectively influence respiratory disease.

The Aging Exposome

| Multiple Authors | Ageing Research Reviews | 2021

Examines how cumulative environmental stress and protective experiences influence cellular aging, resilience, and age-related illness.

The Immune Exposome

| Multiple Authors | Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology | 2021

Explores how infections, pollutants, diet, microbes, allergens, and lifestyle shape immune development and inflammatory disease.

The Oral Exposome

| Multiple Authors | Journal of Clinical Periodontology | 2020

Considers how diet, smoking, microorganisms, chemicals, stress, and social conditions influence oral and periodontal health.

The Skin Exposome

| Multiple Authors | Journal of Dermatological Science | 2020

Reviews the effects of sunlight, air pollution, climate, tobacco smoke, diet, cosmetics, and stress on skin aging and disease.

The Asthma Exposome

| Rémy Slama et al. | Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology | 2019

Reviews the interacting environmental and social factors that may initiate asthma or worsen symptoms across the life course.

The Exposome and Chronic Disease

| Multiple Authors | Environmental Epidemiology | 2019

Reviews how cumulative and interacting exposures contribute to chronic diseases that cannot be explained adequately by genetics alone.

The Gastrointestinal Exposome

| Multiple Authors | Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology | 2019

Explores interactions among food, drugs, pollutants, microbes, metabolism, and the intestinal microbiome.

The Liver Exposome

| Robert Barouki et al. | Journal of Hepatology | 2019

Examines how chemicals, medications, alcohol, nutrition, obesity, infections, and metabolic processes combine to affect liver disease.

The Skin Aging Exposome

| Jean Krutmann et al. | Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology | 2019

Describes external and internal factors that interact throughout life to influence wrinkles, pigmentation, inflammation, and skin cancer risk.

Environmental Exposures and Autoimmune Disease

| Multiple Authors | Autoimmunity Reviews | 2018

Reviews how infections, smoking, occupational agents, air pollution, diet, and chemicals may interact with susceptibility to autoimmune illness.

The External Exposome and Cardiometabolic Health

| Multiple Authors | Environment International | 2018

Studies how built environments, pollution, noise, green space, physical activity, and social circumstances influence metabolic and cardiovascular outcomes.

The Exposome and Breast Cancer

| Multiple Authors | Breast Cancer Research | 2017

Discusses how reproductive, hormonal, chemical, occupational, dietary, and social exposures may accumulate to influence breast-cancer risk.

The Exposome and Metabolic Disease

| Multiple Authors | Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism | 2016

Examines relationships among pollutants, nutrition, physical activity, stress, endocrine disruption, obesity, and diabetes.

The Exposome in Respiratory Diseases

| Martine Vrijheid | Thorax | 2014

Describes how a life-course exposome framework can improve understanding of asthma, chronic lung disease, and impaired lung development.

Social, Occupational, and Built Environments

Equal-Life: The Environment and Children’s Mental Health

| European Human Exposome Network | EHEN | 2024

Explains a European initiative studying how physical and social environments combine to influence children’s mental health and development.

The Working-Life Exposome

| EPHOR Consortium | EPHOR Project | 2024

Describes methods for reconstructing occupational exposures across entire careers and connecting them with chronic disease.

The Urban Exposome

| Roel Vermeulen et al. | Environment International | 2022

Examines how transportation, housing, pollution, noise, green space, heat, services, and inequality shape health in cities.

Environmental Justice and the Exposome

| Multiple Authors | International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health | 2021

Connects cumulative exposure assessment with unequal pollution burdens, structural racism, poverty, and community vulnerability.

Neighborhood Exposomes and Health

| Multiple Authors | Social Science & Medicine | 2021

Considers neighborhoods as packages of environmental opportunities and hazards rather than collections of isolated variables.

Climate Change and the Exposome

| Multiple Authors | Environmental Research | 2020

Examines how heat, wildfire smoke, extreme weather, food insecurity, infectious disease, displacement, and stress reshape lifetime exposure.

The Social Exposome and Health Inequalities

| Multiple Authors | Environment International | 2020

Explores how social conditions become biologically embedded and interact with physical and chemical exposures across generations.

Occupational Exposomics

| D. Gayle DeBord et al. | Annals of Work Exposures and Health | 2019

Reviews sensors, biomarkers, job histories, and molecular tools for measuring workplace exposures across a career.

The Built Environment as Part of the Exposome

| Multiple Authors | Environment International | 2019

Reviews how land use, transportation, housing, walkability, green space, and access to services affect health.

The Socio-Exposome

| Multiple Authors | Environmental Research | 2019

Proposes a framework for integrating social relationships, socioeconomic status, discrimination, and political conditions into exposome science.

External Exposome and Geographic Information Systems

| Multiple Authors | Environment International | 2018

Explains how satellite data, land-use models, maps, and residential histories can estimate environmental conditions over time.

Data, Methods, Ethics, and Research Infrastructure

Exposome Research: From Information to Action

| International Agency for Research on Cancer | IARC | May 21, 2024

Highlights scientific, legal, ethical, and policy questions involved in translating exposome findings into preventive action.

Exposome-Wide Association Studies

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2024

Reviews systematic methods for testing many environmental factors while addressing multiple comparisons, confounding, and correlated exposures.

The European Human Exposome Network

| European Commission | Research and Innovation | 2024

Summarizes nine major European projects studying early life, work, cities, immune disease, lung disease, metabolism, and environmental data systems.

The Human Exposome Assessment Platform

| HEAP Consortium | Human Exposome Assessment Platform | 2024

Describes a research infrastructure designed to combine exposure, health, molecular, and population data while protecting participant privacy.

Bayesian Methods for Exposome Studies

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2023

Reviews probabilistic models that can handle correlated exposures, uncertainty, interactions, nonlinear effects, and repeated measurements.

Causal Inference in Exposome Research

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2023

Explains approaches for distinguishing causal environmental effects from confounding, reverse causation, selection bias, and chance associations.

Mixture Analysis in Exposome Research

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2023

Compares statistical approaches for estimating the joint effects of many chemicals and identifying influential mixture components.

The Banbury Exposomics Consortium and a Consensus Definition of the Exposome

| Banbury Exposomics Consortium | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2023

Develops shared terminology intended to improve consistency across the rapidly expanding field of exposome research.

Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues in Exposome Research

| Multiple Authors | Environment International | 2022

Examines privacy, informed consent, surveillance, data ownership, discrimination, and responsibility for environmental harm.

Geospatial Exposomics

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2022

Reviews methods for linking health records with satellite observations, land-use data, pollution models, climate records, and neighborhood indicators.

Network Analysis of the Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2022

Uses networks to represent relationships among exposures, biological pathways, social conditions, and multiple diseases.

Exposome-Explorer Database 3.0

| International Agency for Research on Cancer | IARC | March 29, 2021

Describes the addition of microbial metabolites and other biomarkers to a major international exposure database.

Exposome Data Analysis: Challenges and Solutions

| Multiple Authors | Environment International | 2021

Reviews statistical and computational challenges created by thousands of correlated exposures measured repeatedly across life.

Multi-Omics Integration in Exposome Science

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2021

Reviews methods combining genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and microbiome data with environmental measurements.

Remote Sensing and the External Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2021

Explains how satellite and aerial data can estimate vegetation, heat, air pollution, land use, wildfire smoke, and urban development.

Wearable Environmental Sensors in Exposome Studies

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2021

Evaluates portable devices that measure pollution, temperature, noise, location, activity, sleep, heart rate, and other personal conditions.

Launch of the European Human Exposome Network

| International Agency for Research on Cancer | IARC | January 14, 2020

Introduces a coordinated European program investigating how diet, lifestyle, work, and living environments affect health from the prenatal period onward.

Challenges in Reconstructing Lifetime Exposure

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2020

Discusses changing environments, incomplete records, short-lived chemicals, residential mobility, recall errors, and sensitive developmental periods.

Exposome Informatics

| Fernando Martín-Sánchez et al. | International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health | 2020

Discusses data standards, interoperability, computational infrastructure, and health informatics needed for large exposome studies.

Exposome-Explorer 2.0 Adds Dietary and Cancer Biomarkers

| International Agency for Research on Cancer | IARC | September 17, 2019

Reports an expansion of the database to include hundreds of dietary biomarkers and associations between diet-related biomarkers and cancer.

Characterizing the Human Exposome for Precision Health

| Fernando Martín-Sánchez | International Agency for Research on Cancer | 2019

Explores how environmental histories could be integrated with clinical and molecular data to improve individualized prevention.

Big Data and the Exposome

| Multiple Authors | Environmental Research | 2018

Reviews computational approaches for linking large environmental datasets with electronic health records, cohorts, and molecular measurements.

The Exposome and Precision Medicine

| Multiple Authors | Translational Research | 2017

Argues that precision medicine must consider environmental and social histories alongside genomic information.

The Exposome: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

| Christopher P. Wild | International Agency for Research on Cancer | 2015

Reflects on the first decade of exposome research and the technological advances making comprehensive exposure assessment increasingly possible.

Exposome and Exposomics

| National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health | CDC/NIOSH | 2014

Defines the exposome and explains how lifelong environmental and occupational exposures can be related to health outcomes.

Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approaches to the Exposome

| Stephen M. Rappaport | International Journal of Epidemiology | 2014

Compares approaches beginning with chemicals inside the body with approaches that reconstruct exposures from external sources.

The Exposome in Environmental Health Research

| Christopher P. Wild | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2012

Explains why improving exposure measurement is essential for identifying preventable environmental causes of disease.

New Directions in Exposome Research

How Social and Environmental Exposures Across Life Influence Mental-Health Risk

| Pooja Toshniwal Paharia | News-Medical | March 10, 2026

Summarizes emerging research that applies the exposome framework to mental illness, prevention, clinical care, and health equity.

Exposome and Mental Health Across the Lifespan

| Ran Barzilay and Dilip V. Jeste | Neuropsychopharmacology | 2026

Explains how chemical, physical, behavioral, social, and structural conditions interact during sensitive life stages to influence mental-health risks.

A Statistical Workflow for Analyzing the Untargeted Chemical Exposome

| A. S. Young et al. | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2025

Presents a workflow for filtering, identifying, and interpreting environmental chemicals detected through untargeted analysis.

Environmental Chemical Exposures and Epigenetic Aging

| D. Khodasevich et al. | Environmental Health | 2025

Uses an exposome-wide approach to investigate whether environmental chemicals are associated with accelerated biological aging.

Exposomics: A Review of Methodologies, Applications, and Future Directions

| M. Wan et al. | Journal of Translational Medicine | 2025

Reviews exposome measurement, biomarkers, omics technologies, computational methods, clinical applications, and remaining research challenges.

Integrating the Environmental and Genetic Architectures of Aging and Mortality

| Austin Argentieri et al. | Nature Medicine | 2025

Compares environmental and genetic contributions to mortality and 25 major age-related diseases in nearly half a million people.

Mapping the Exposome of Mental-Health Outcomes

| M. K. Doğan et al. | Molecular Psychiatry | 2025

Maps environmental influences on mental health and considers how social determinants interact with biological responses throughout life.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Exposome Research

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2024

Reviews machine-learning approaches for identifying patterns, interactions, and disease associations in high-dimensional exposure datasets.

Exposome-Based Research for Precision Prevention

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2024

Examines how combined environmental, biological, and social information could identify preventable risks before clinical disease develops.

Longitudinal Exposomics Reveals Dynamic Chemical Mixtures in Blood

| K. Sdougkou et al. | Nature Communications | 2024

Demonstrates that the chemical exposome changes over time and that repeated blood samples can reveal individual exposure patterns.

Environmental Chemicals and Mixtures

The Chemical Exposome and Human Health

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2024

Reviews the thousands of natural and manufactured chemicals that may enter the body through air, water, food, workplaces, and consumer products.

Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals and the Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2023

Investigates how mixtures of hormone-disrupting chemicals may affect development, reproduction, metabolism, and hormone-sensitive disease.

Environmental Mixtures and the Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2023

Explains why studying chemical mixtures can provide a more realistic picture of exposure than examining one substance at a time.

Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances in the Human Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2023

Reviews how persistent PFAS chemicals contribute to complex exposure mixtures and may influence immune, metabolic, reproductive, and developmental health.

Pesticide Exposure Through an Exposome Lens

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2023

Considers occupational, residential, dietary, and prenatal pesticide exposures as interacting components of a lifelong exposure history.

Plastics, Microplastics, and the Human Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2023

Reviews exposure to plastic particles and plastic-associated chemicals through food, water, air, packaging, and consumer products.

The Persistent Organic Pollutant Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2023

Examines lifelong exposure to long-lasting pollutants that accumulate in food chains, human tissue, and the environment.

Non-Targeted Analysis of the Chemical Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2022

Describes laboratory methods that search broadly for unknown chemicals instead of measuring only a predetermined list of pollutants.

Operationalizing the Exposome Using Passive Silicone Samplers

| Z. C. Fuentes et al. | Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology | 2022

Evaluates wearable silicone devices that absorb chemicals from a person’s surroundings and provide a record of personal exposure.

The Metal Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2022

Examines combined exposure to lead, arsenic, mercury, cadmium, manganese, and other metals rather than treating each independently.

Air, Water, Food, and Consumer Exposures

The Air-Pollution Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2024

Treats particulate matter, gases, metals, organic chemicals, allergens, and biological particles as a changing mixture encountered throughout life.

Wildfire Smoke and the Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2024

Examines how repeated wildfire-smoke exposure may interact with heat, occupation, housing, stress, and preexisting disease.

Drinking Water and the Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2023

Reviews contaminants, disinfection by-products, metals, microbes, and geographic inequalities in lifelong drinking-water exposure.

Household Dust as a Window into the Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2023

Explains how household dust can carry metals, pesticides, flame retardants, plasticizers, allergens, microbes, and other exposure indicators.

Indoor Air and the Human Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2023

Reviews pollutants originating from cooking, heating, tobacco smoke, furnishings, cleaning products, moisture, dust, and building materials.

Consumer Products and the Chemical Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2022

Examines exposure arising from cosmetics, cleaning supplies, furniture, electronics, clothing, packaging, and personal-care products.

Dietary Exposome and Chronic Disease

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2022

Investigates how dietary patterns and food-derived chemicals interact with metabolism, microbiomes, and other environmental conditions.

The Food Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2022

Describes food as a complex source of nutrients, natural compounds, microbes, additives, processing products, packaging chemicals, and contaminants.

Personal-Care Products and the Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2021

Reviews repeated exposure to fragrances, preservatives, plasticizers, ultraviolet filters, antimicrobials, and other product ingredients.

The Nutrition Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2021

Explores how nutrients, dietary patterns, food access, culture, metabolism, and contaminants jointly influence health.

Microbiomes, Metabolism, and Internal Exposure

The Microbiome as Part of the Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2024

Examines the microbiome as both a target of environmental exposures and a source of metabolites that influence human biology.

The Gut Microbiome and Environmental Chemicals

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2023

Reviews how gut microorganisms can transform environmental chemicals and alter their absorption, toxicity, and elimination.

The Infectious Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2023

Considers viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites, immune responses, vaccination, sanitation, and social conditions within lifetime exposure histories.

Metabolic Signatures of Environmental Exposure

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2019

Reviews metabolite patterns that may reveal exposure to pollution, tobacco, diet, medications, stress, and occupational agents.

The Human Exposome: Unraveling the Impact of Environment on Health

| K. P. K. Olympio et al. | Revista de Saúde Pública | 2019

Introduces exposomic methods for connecting external conditions, internal chemical burdens, biological effects, and disease.

The Metabolome as a Key Measure for Exposome Research

| Douglas I. Walker et al. | Current Epidemiology Reports | 2019

Explains how metabolic profiles can simultaneously reflect environmental chemicals, diet, microbiomes, behavior, and biological responses.

Toward a Mass-Spectrometry-Based Chemical Exposome

| Jingchuan Xue et al. | Environment International | 2019

Reviews mass-spectrometry methods for detecting known and unknown chemicals in environmental and biological samples.

The Epigenome as a Biosensor of the Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2016

Examines environmentally associated changes in DNA methylation and gene regulation as possible records of past exposure.

Use of Metabolomics to Advance Exposome Research

| Multiple Authors | Current Epidemiology Reports | 2016

Explains how metabolomics may uncover previously unrecognized exposures and clarify biological pathways connecting exposure with disease.

The Internal Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2015

Focuses on chemicals, hormones, inflammatory signals, oxidative stress, metabolites, and microbial products circulating inside the body.

Adult Health, Aging, and Chronic Disease

An Exposomic Framework for Environmental Drivers of Aging

| Vaishali Kalia et al. | Ageing Research Reviews | 2022

Reviews how chemical, physical, social, and behavioral exposures may influence biological aging and longevity.

Exposome and Frailty in Older Adults

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2022

Investigates how cumulative social disadvantage, pollution, occupation, nutrition, activity, and disease contribute to vulnerability in later life.

Exposome-Wide Association Studies of Biological Aging

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2022

Examines associations between numerous environmental factors and epigenetic, metabolic, inflammatory, and functional measures of aging.

The Exposome and Dementia

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2022

Reviews environmental and lifestyle factors that may influence cognitive decline, Alzheimer’s disease, and other dementias.

The Exposome and Alzheimer’s Disease

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2021

Examines how lifelong environmental conditions may interact with genetic susceptibility to influence neurodegeneration.

The Exposome and Parkinson’s Disease

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2021

Considers pesticides, solvents, metals, air pollution, occupation, diet, physical activity, and protective exposures in Parkinson’s disease.

The Renal Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2021

Reviews how metals, chemicals, medications, heat, dehydration, diet, occupation, and chronic disease affect kidney health.

The Exposome and Multimorbidity

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2020

Explores how shared environmental causes can contribute to several chronic diseases occurring in the same individual.

The Exposome and Type 2 Diabetes

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2020

Examines the combined influence of nutrition, activity, sleep, pollution, endocrine disruptors, stress, and social inequality on diabetes.

The Obesogenic Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2020

Considers chemicals, food environments, sleep, stress, transportation, physical activity, advertising, and socioeconomic conditions in obesity.

Mental Health and the Social Exposome

The Psychiatric Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2024

Applies the exposome framework to trauma, discrimination, pollution, infection, nutrition, substance use, neighborhood conditions, and mental illness.

Environmental Exposures and Anxiety Disorders

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2023

Considers how traumatic experiences, noise, climate disasters, chemical exposures, housing insecurity, and social conditions contribute to anxiety.

The Adolescent Exposome and Mental Health

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2023

Examines how family, school, neighborhood, digital media, pollution, sleep, diet, and social adversity affect adolescent mental health.

The Exposome and Depression

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2023

Reviews environmental and social exposures associated with depression, including adversity, isolation, pollution, sleep disruption, and neighborhood deprivation.

Green Space, the Exposome, and Mental Health

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2022

Reviews how exposure to vegetation and natural settings may influence stress, physical activity, social connection, air quality, and mental health.

Noise Exposure and the Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2022

Considers transportation, occupational, neighborhood, and household noise as cumulative stressors affecting sleep, cognition, and cardiovascular health.

Urban Exposome and Mental Health

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2022

Examines how density, noise, pollution, green space, mobility, crime, inequality, and social interaction affect psychological well-being.

Social Isolation and the Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2021

Examines social connection as a health-influencing exposure that interacts with stress, neighborhood conditions, behavior, and biological aging.

Structural Racism and the Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2021

Explores how discriminatory policies shape housing, employment, pollution exposure, health care, stress, and biological outcomes.

Allostatic Load and the Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2020

Connects cumulative environmental and psychosocial stress with multisystem biological wear and long-term disease risk.

Occupational and Community Exposomes

The Agricultural Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2023

Reviews occupational and community exposure to pesticides, dust, microbes, fuels, heat, noise, injury hazards, and social stress.

The Firefighter Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2023

Examines complex exposure to smoke, combustion products, protective equipment chemicals, heat, shift work, trauma, and physical strain.

The Military Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2023

Considers deployment-related chemicals, dust, fuels, noise, radiation, infectious agents, stress, injuries, and lifestyle changes.

The Construction-Worker Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2022

Examines silica, asbestos, solvents, metals, noise, ultraviolet radiation, heat, vibration, dust, and injury hazards across working life.

The Mining Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2022

Considers dust, metals, diesel exhaust, noise, vibration, heat, radiation, injury, and community contamination associated with mining.

The Nursing Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2022

Reviews occupational exposure to disinfectants, medications, infectious agents, shift work, physical demands, and psychological stress.

The Transportation Exposome

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2022

Reviews traffic pollution, noise, vibration, stress, sedentary time, crashes, commuting patterns, and neighborhood connectivity.

Community-Engaged Exposome Research

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2021

Discusses how residents can help identify exposure priorities, gather data, interpret results, and develop locally relevant interventions.

The Workplace Exposome and Chronic Disease

| Multiple Authors | PubMed Research Collection | 2021

Examines how occupational chemicals, physical demands, schedules, stress, and employment insecurity contribute to diseases that emerge years later.

Use of Exposomic Methods Incorporating Sensors in Occupational Health

| Brett T. Doherty et al. | Annals of Work Exposures and Health | 2021

Reviews wearable and portable tools for measuring personal workplace exposures, location, activity, and physiological responses.

One Health, Public Health, and Risk Assessment

From Exposome Research to Public-Health Action

| European Human Exposome Network | EHEN | 2024

Summarizes research intended to translate exposome evidence into disease prevention, healthier environments, and environmental policy.

The Exposome and Planetary Health

| Multiple Authors | Exposome | 2023

Connects personal exposure histories with climate disruption, biodiversity loss, pollution, food systems, and global environmental change.

Exposome-Based Public-Health Interventions for Infectious Diseases in Urban Settings

| X. D. Andrianou et al. | Environment International | 2021

Shows how urban design, housing, air quality, mobility, inequality, behavior, and biological susceptibility affect infectious-disease transmission.

Public Health Exposomics

| Multiple Authors | Exposome | 2021

Discusses how comprehensive exposure assessment can support prevention, regulation, community action, and more equitable public-health policy.

The Exposome and Immune Health in Times of the COVID-19 Pandemic

| Javier S. Morales et al. | Nutrients | 2021

Reviews how exercise, diet, sleep, stress, sunlight, smoking, pollution, obesity, and microbiomes influence immunity and responses to infection.

The Exposome in the Era of One Health

| Peng Gao | Environmental Science & Technology | 2021

Connects human exposome research with animal health, ecosystems, microorganisms, food systems, and environmental sustainability.

The Exposome Paradigm to Predict Environmental Health in Human and Ecological Systems

| Jun Kikuchi and Shunji Yamada | RSC Advances | 2021

Extends exposome thinking beyond individual people to communities, ecosystems, food chains, and environmental monitoring.

The Exposome: A New Approach for Risk Assessment

| Fenna C. M. Sillé et al. | ALTEX | 2020

Reviews how exposome science could improve chemical risk assessment by accounting for mixtures, biological pathways, timing, and individual susceptibility.

Use of an Exposome Approach to Understand Environmental Health Disparities

| Paul D. Juarez et al. | Frontiers in Public Health | 2020

Applies exposome concepts to the unequal environmental and social conditions responsible for persistent health disparities.

What Is New in the Exposome?

| Paolo Vineis et al. | Environment International | 2020

Reviews recent advances in biomarkers, omics, sensors, causal inference, and population studies that have moved exposomics toward practical application.