Westat, Rockville, MD, USA.
Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
Int J Hyg Environ Health. 2021 Jun;235:113768. doi: 10.1016/j.ijheh.2021.113768. Epub 2021 May 23.
Characterizing the complexity of environmental exposures in relation to human health is critical to advancing our understanding of health and disease throughout the life span. Extant cohort studies open the door for such investigations more rapidly and inexpensively than launching new cohort studies and the Human Health Exposure Analysis Resource (HHEAR) provides a resource for implementing life-stage exposure studies within existing study populations. Primary challenges to incorporation of environmental exposure assessment in health studies include: (1) lack of widespread knowledge of biospecimen and environmental sampling and storage requirements for environmental exposure assessment among investigators; (2) lack of availability of and access to laboratories capable of analyzing multiple environmental exposures throughout the life-course; and (3) studies lacking sufficient power to assess associations across life-stages. HHEAR includes a consortium of researchers with expertise in laboratory analyses, statistics and logistics to overcome these limitations and enable inclusion of exposomics in human health studies.
This manuscript describes the structure and strengths of implementing the harmonized HHEAR resource model, and our approaches to addressing challenges. We describe how HHEAR incorporates analyses of biospecimens and environmental samples and human health studies across the life span - serving as a model for incorporating environmental exposures into national and international research. We also present program successes to date.
HHEAR provides a full-service laboratory and data analysis exposure assessment resource, linking scientific, life span, and toxicological consultation with both laboratory and data analysis expertise. HHEAR services are provided without cost but require NIH, NCI, NHLBI, or ECHO funding of the original cohort; internal HHEAR scientific review and approval of a brief application; and adherence to data sharing and publication policies. We describe the benefits of HHEAR's structure, collaborative framework and coordination across project investigators, analytical laboratories, biostatisticians and bioinformatics specialists; quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) including integrated sample management; and tools that have been developed to support the research (exposure information pages, ontology, new analytical methods, common QA/QC approach across laboratories, etc.). This foundation supports HHEAR's inclusion of new laboratory and statistical analysis methods and studies that are enhanced by including targeted analysis of specific exposures and untargeted analysis of chemicals associated with phenotypic endpoints in biological and environmental samples.
HHEAR is an interdisciplinary team of toxicologists, epidemiologists, laboratory scientists, and data scientists across multiple institutions to address broad and complex questions that benefit from integrated laboratory and data analyses. HHEAR's processes, features, and tools include all life stages and analysis of biospecimens and environmental samples. They are available to the wider scientific community to augment studies by adding state of the art environmental analyses to be linked to human health outcomes.
描述与人类健康相关的环境暴露复杂性对于推进我们对整个生命周期内健康和疾病的理解至关重要。现有的队列研究比开展新的队列研究更快、更经济地为这类研究打开了大门，而人类健康暴露分析资源（HHEAR）则为在现有研究人群中开展生命阶段暴露研究提供了资源。将环境暴露评估纳入健康研究的主要挑战包括：（1）研究人员对生物样本和环境采样以及环境暴露评估的存储要求缺乏广泛的了解；（2）缺乏能够分析整个生命过程中多种环境暴露的实验室，并且难以获得这些实验室；（3）研究缺乏评估整个生命阶段关联的足够能力。HHEAR 包括一个具有实验室分析、统计学和物流专业知识的研究人员联盟，以克服这些限制，并使暴露组学能够纳入人类健康研究。
本文描述了实施协调一致的 HHEAR 资源模型的结构和优势，以及我们解决挑战的方法。我们描述了 HHEAR 如何结合生物样本和环境样本分析以及整个生命周期的人类健康研究——作为将环境暴露纳入国家和国际研究的模型。我们还介绍了迄今为止的项目成功。
HHEAR 提供了全方位服务的实验室和数据分析暴露评估资源，将科学、生命周期和毒理学咨询与实验室和数据分析专业知识相结合。HHEAR 服务是免费提供的，但需要 NIH、NCI、NHLBI 或 ECHO 为原始队列提供资金；内部 HHEAR 科学审查和简要申请的批准；并遵守数据共享和发布政策。我们描述了 HHEAR 的结构、协作框架以及项目研究人员、分析实验室、生物统计学家和生物信息学专家之间的协调的优势；质量保证/质量控制（QA/QC），包括综合样本管理；以及为支持研究而开发的工具（暴露信息页面、本体、新的分析方法、实验室间通用 QA/QC 方法等）。这个基础支持 HHEAR 纳入新的实验室和统计分析方法以及研究，通过针对特定暴露的靶向分析和生物和环境样本中与表型终点相关的化学物质的非靶向分析来增强这些研究。
HHEAR 是一个跨多个机构的毒理学家、流行病学家、实验室科学家和数据科学家的跨学科团队，旨在解决需要综合实验室和数据分析的广泛而复杂的问题。HHEAR 的流程、特点和工具涵盖了所有生命阶段以及生物样本和环境样本的分析。它们可供更广泛的科学界使用，通过将最先进的环境分析添加到与人类健康结果相关联的研究中，来增强研究。
