This knowledge gap was the specific focus of the 2013 international workshop “Best Practices for Obtaining, Interpreting and Using Human Biomonitoring Data in Epidemiology and Risk Assessment: Chemicals with Short Biological Half-Lives.” The workshop brought together an expert panel from government, academia,

and private institutions specializing in analytical chemistry, exposure and risk assessment, epidemiology, medicine, physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modeling, and clinical biomarkers. The aims of the workshop were to (i) describe the key issues that affect epidemiology studies using biomonitoring data on chemicals with short physiologic half lives, and (ii) develop a systematic scheme for evaluating the quality of research proposals

and studies that incorporate biomonitoring data on short-lived chemicals. Quality criteria for three areas considered Selleck JNK inhibitor to be fundamental find more to the evaluation of epidemiology studies that include biological measurements of short-lived chemicals are described in this paper: 1) biomarker selection and measurement, 2) study design and execution, and 3) general epidemiological study design considerations. Key aspects of these topic areas are discussed and are then incorporated into a proposed evaluative instrument – the Biomonitoring, Environmental Epidemiology, and Short-Lived Chemicals (BEES-C) instrument – organized as a tiered matrix (Table 1). Some aspects of the proposed evaluative instrument include study design elements that are relevant to epidemiology Miconazole studies of both persistent and short-lived chemicals. In fact, aspects of widely accepted instruments such as STROBE have intentionally been weaved into the evaluative instrument proposed here (Gallo et al., 2011, Little et al., 2009 and Vandenbroucke et

al., 2007). (STROBE offers guidance regarding methods for improving on reporting of observational studies and for critically evaluating these studies; STROBE is designed to be used by reviewers, journal editors and readers [(Vandenbroucke et al., 2007)].) While both established and novel aspects of this instrument are critical to assessing the quality of a study using biomonitoring of short-lived chemicals as an exposure assessment approach, the primary objective of this communication is to cover critical aspects of studies of short-lived chemicals; these are described more fully in the text. The list of quality issues that could be used to evaluate a given study is long; a tension exists between the development of an all-inclusive but unwieldy instrument versus a more discriminating and utilitarian instrument that includes only the most important issues (focusing on those research aspects that are unique – or of particular importance – to short-lived chemicals). We opted for the latter in developing the proposed BEES-C Instrument.