A comparison of individual-level vs. hypothetically pooled mercury biomonitoring data from the Maternal Organics Monitoring Study (MOMS), Alaska, 1999-2012

• Published in: International Journal of Circumpolar Health
• Main Authors: Emily Mosites, Ernesto Rodriguez, Samuel P. Caudill, Thomas W. Hennessy, James Berner
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2020
• Subjects: arctic; biomonitoring; mercury; Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Arctic; Circumpolar Health; International Journal of Circumpolar Health; Alaska
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1080/22423982.2020.1726256; https://doaj.org/article/073dab75f3204119909112ac63b461ff

Biomonitoring for heavy metals is important to assess health risks, especially in Arctic communities where rural residents rely on locally harvested foods. However, laboratory testing for blood contaminants is expensive and might not be sustainable for long-term monitoring. We assessed whether pooled specimen biomonitoring could be a part of a plan for blood contaminant surveillance among pregnant women in rural Alaska using existing blood mercury level data from three cross sectional studies of pregnant women. We applied a hypothetical pooled specimen template stratified into 8 demographic groups based on age, coastal or inland residence, and pre-pregnancy weight. The hypothetical geometric mean blood mercury levels were similar to the individual-level geometric means. However, the 95% confidence intervals were much wider for the hypothetical geometric means compared to the true geometric means. Although the variability that resulted from pooling specimens using a small sample made it difficult to compare demographic groups to each other, pooled specimen results could be an accurate reflection of the population burden of mercury contamination in the Arctic in the context of large numbers of biomonitoring samples.