Topic: Advances in Environmental Exposure Factors for Human Health Risk Assessment

Exposure factors are parameters used to describe the amount and rate of human exposure to external substances through breathing, ingestion and skin uptake, as well as human characteristics such as body weight and surface area. They play a very important role in environmental exposure assessment, and are regarded as one of the key parameters that determine the accuracy of environmental health risk assessment. Thus, the methodologies and techniques of obtaining exposure factors are crucial to ensure their completeness and accuracy. Questionnaire survey, time-log method, isotope technique, and modelling are widely applied to derive various environmental exposure factors, such as the air inhalation rate for specific population sectors, intake rates of foodstuffs and drinking water, time spent indoors and outdoors time, etc. However, traditional methods of deriving exposure factors may not be appropriate in some scenarios, such as uptake of microplastics through dermal contact and the time people spend indoors and outdoors in the context of climate change. Thus, new methodologies, models, and applications of exposure factors are needed to enhance understanding and management of environmental health risks. This Special Issue aims to provide a platform for researchers and practitioners to disseminate their new findings and insights related to environmental exposure factors for human health risk assessment. Potential topics include but are not limited to:

1. Field investigation of exposure factors

2. New methodologies for deriving exposure factors

3. Modelling of exposure factors  

4. Application of AI in exposure factors 

5. Application of exposure factors in health risk assessment

6. Application of exposure factors in environmental management

7. Methods to address uncertainties in exposure factors

8. Qualitative and quantitative exposure factors in risk assessment of emerging pollutants