Assessing Exposure to Personal Care Product Ingredients: Biomonitoring data and modeling approaches

Exposure to ingredients in personal care product ingredients is inherent in the use of such products.  However, assessing exposure to such ingredients in the real world poses numerous challenges, including understanding dermal exposure and absorption potential, consideration of aggregate exposures from multiple products, and understanding personal susceptibility factors.  Exposure models provide one approach to estimating such exposures, while biomonitoring studies provide a complementary approach.  This talk will discuss challenges in measuring and modeling such exposures and factors influencing the interpretation of urinary biomonitoring data for key ingredients.  The talk will also provide an overview of available exposure models for such products.  Finally, the talk will present data from a detailed observational biomonitoring study examining exposure to selected parabens and triclosan in personal care products.  The results from the biomonitoring study are compared to predictions from several available exposure models, and the results of the exercise are discussed in the context of risk assessment for personal care products.

Lesa L. Aylward, Ph.D., is a Principal at Summit Toxicology, LLP, located in Falls Church, Virginia, USA, and is an Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Queensland, Australia, Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences.  She has more than 30 years of experience in chemical risk assessment and hazard communication. She specializes in applying pharmacokinetic modeling and data in the assessment of toxicology, exposure, and risk, including the interpretation of biomonitoring data for assessing human health risks from a variety of chemicals. Dr. Aylward and her colleagues at Summit Toxicology have published on the development of tools for screening-level evaluation of population biomonitoring data for a wide range of chemical compounds in a risk assessment context. Dr. Aylward is a board member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology and a member of the NAS Committee on Emerging Science for Environmental Health Decisions.  She is an active member of the International Society for Exposure Science, the Society of Toxicology (Exposure, Biological Modeling, and Risk Assessment Specialty Sections) and the Society for Risk Analysis. Dr. Aylward is co-Editor-in-Chief of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology and an Associate Editor at Environment International.  Prior to her position at Summit Toxicology, Dr. Aylward provided consulting services at Exponent, Inc.; BBL, Inc.; and Karch & Associates. She received her B.S. and M.S. in engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her Ph.D. in toxicology from Utrecht University.