Human Biomonitoring: Levels, Determinants and Sources of Polychlorinated Biphenyl Exposure in the Northwest Territories and Yukon

• Main Author: Gevaert, Victoria
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: University of Waterloo 2023
• Subjects: Toxicology; Polychlorinated Biphenyl; Indigenous; Traditional foods; Arctic and subArctic; Arctic; Yukon; Northwest Territories; Canada; Human health; Old Crow; Subarctic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10012/19658

Background: Human biomonitoring is a useful tool to assess contaminant exposure levels in human populations. Several human biomonitoring projects have been established in Canada to measure and report analyte exposure levels. However, these projects often do not include participants from Arctic and subarctic Indigenous communities in the Northwest Territories and Yukon. Thus, to fill a data gap in Canada, biomonitoring projects in the Dehcho and Sahtú regions of the Northwest Territories as well as Old Crow, Yukon were established between 2016 and 2019 to assess contaminant and nutrient exposure status as well as report information related to traditional food diets. Data on traditional food diets is also useful to collect as these diets provide several benefits related to health and well-being. Importantly, identifying exposure levels is the first step in identifying potential sources of exposure, which often include diet for many classes of contaminants. Polychlorinated biphenyl’s (PCB) were among the dozens of analytes measured in these projects. These man-made chemicals are an important chemical to monitor due to their persistent nature and their potential for adverse human health effects. Although production of PCBs has been banned in North America since 1979 and worldwide since 2001, levels of PCBs are still detected in human biological samples. This research aims to report levels of PCB exposure in participating regions of the biomonitoring project described above as well as identify potential determinants and sources of these chemicals. Methods Biomonitoring clinics were set up in communities within the Dehcho and Sahtú regions of the Northwest Territories and in the community of Old Crow, Yukon. At these clinics, select biological samples were collected, including plasma for POP analysis. Surveys and questionnaires were also administered to collect demographic and dietary data. Using the analytical and survey data collected from these biomonitoring projects, statistical analyses were completed to ...