Human biomonitoring of environmental chemicals—Early results of the 2007–2009 Canadian Health Measures Survey for males and females

Human biomonitoring is an important indicator and measure of exposure to environmental chemicals and provides information to support health protection policies and programs. Cycle 1 (2007–2009) of the Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS) collected and analyzed biological samples from over 5600 males and females aged 6–79 years, which established national representative blood and urine concentrations for a number of environmental chemicals including metals, organophosphate insecticide metabolites, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), organochlorines (OCs), perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), bisphenol A (BPA), and cotinine. The results of CHMS Cycle 1 indicate that while some organophosphate insecticide metabolites were below limits of detection for most participants, metals, PCBs, OCs, PFCs and BPA were detected in almost all blood or urine samples. Significant differences (p < 0.05) in blood concentrations between males and females were also determined for several metals (e.g., lead for males and females was 15.1 and 11.8 μg/L, respectively), PFCs (e.g., PFOS for males and females was 11.13 and 7.07 μg/L, respectively), and OCs (e.g., p,p′-DDE for males and females was 134.43 and 172.07 μg/kg lipid, respectively) and in urine concentrations for BPA (1.29 and 1.04 μg/L for males and females, respectively). Future cycles of the CHMS will permit temporal trend analysis for a number of these chemicals.