Environ. Sci. Technol. 2010, 44, 5691–5692
Are PBDEs an environmental equity concern? Exposure disparities by socioeconomic status AMI R. ZOTA* University of California, San Francisco, California GARY ADAMKIEWICZ Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts RACHEL A. MORELLO-FROSCH University of California, Berkeley, California
RHONDA SAUNDERS
Author’s Viewpoint
There has been a surge of new research highlighting the potential health consequences of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), brominated flame retardants which have been added to consumer products since the 1970s to reduce flammability of electronics and furniture. Due to their persistent nature and tendency to bioaccumulate, these compounds are ubiquitous and have been detected in human tissues, marine mammals, house dust, and virtually any biological or environmental media taken from anywhere on the planet. Exposure assessment studies have documented body burden levels in various populations and investigated contributors of human exposure. These studies suggest that PBDE exposures are not homogeneous across diverse groups. * E-mail:
[email protected]. 10.1021/es101723d
2010 American Chemical Society
Published on Web 06/28/2010
For example, recent studies have shown higher exposures among young children compared to adults (1). This finding is consistent with exposure profiles of other environmental contaminants, such as lead, where dust is an important exposure media; indeed, children spend more time close to the ground and engage in hand-to-mouth behavior which may increase their dust intake. There are also significant geographic differences in PBDE exposures with much higher serum, breast milk, and house dust levels reported in the U.S. compared to Europe. Within the U.S., PBDE congeners characteristic of penta-BDE (e.g., BDE-47, -99, and -100) occur at higher concentrations in house dust and blood samples collected from Californians compared to other U.S. residents. This difference in exposure levels within the U.S. is likely due to California’s unique furniture flammability standard (TB117), which appears to be associated with body burdens that are twice as high as the rest of the U.S. and 10-fold higher than levels in Europe (2). A third group that may face disproportionate exposures to PBDEs is people of lower socioeconomic status (SES). Several studies have independently found that non-White racial and ethnic groups, as well as populations with lower household income, and lower educational attainment, have significantly higher PBDE body burdens. The first study to show a difference in PBDE exposures by SES was published by Zota et al. in 2008 using nationally representative data from 2040 participants in NHANES (2). After controlling for geographic residence, race/ethnicity, age, sex, and country of origin, the authors found that individuals residing in lower income households (
