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An environmental factor, ecological factor or eco factor is any factor,
abiotic In biology and ecology, abiotic components or abiotic factors are non-living chemical and physical parts of the environment that affect living organisms and the functioning of ecosystems. Abiotic factors and the phenomena associated with them under ...
or biotic, that influences
living organism In biology, an organism () is any living system that functions as an individual entity. All organisms are composed of cells (cell theory). Organisms are classified by taxonomy into groups such as multicellular animals, plants, and fungi ...
s. Abiotic factors include ambient
temperature Temperature is a physical quantity that expresses quantitatively the perceptions of hotness and coldness. Temperature is measured with a thermometer. Thermometers are calibrated in various temperature scales that historically have relied o ...
, amount of
sunlight Sunlight is a portion of the electromagnetic radiation given off by the Sun, in particular infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light. On Earth, sunlight is scattered and filtered through Earth's atmosphere, and is obvious as daylight when ...
, and pH of the water soil in which an organism lives. Biotic factors would include the availability of food organisms and the presence of biological specificity,
competitors Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indivi ...
,
predator Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill t ...
s, and
parasites Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson ha ...
.


Overview

An organism's
genotype The genotype of an organism is its complete set of genetic material. Genotype can also be used to refer to the alleles or variants an individual carries in a particular gene or genetic location. The number of alleles an individual can have in a ...
(e.g., in the
zygote A zygote (, ) is a eukaryotic cell formed by a fertilization event between two gametes. The zygote's genome is a combination of the DNA in each gamete, and contains all of the genetic information of a new individual organism. In multicell ...
) translated into the
adult An adult is a human or other animal that has reached full growth. In human context, the term ''adult'' has meanings associated with social and legal concepts. In contrast to a " minor", a legal adult is a person who has attained the age of maj ...
phenotype In genetics, the phenotype () is the set of observable characteristics or traits of an organism. The term covers the organism's morphology (biology), morphology or physical form and structure, its Developmental biology, developmental proc ...
through development during an organism's
ontogeny Ontogeny (also ontogenesis) is the origination and development of an organism (both physical and psychological, e.g., moral development), usually from the time of fertilization of the egg to adult. The term can also be used to refer to the s ...
, and subject to influences by many environmental effects. In this context, a phenotype (or phenotypic trait) can be viewed as any definable and measurable characteristic of an organism, such as its body mass or
skin color Human skin color ranges from the darkest brown to the lightest hues. Differences in skin color among individuals is caused by variation in pigmentation, which is the result of genetics (inherited from one's biological parents and or individu ...
. Apart from the true monogenic
genetic disorder A genetic disorder is a health problem caused by one or more abnormalities in the genome. It can be caused by a mutation in a single gene (monogenic) or multiple genes (polygenic) or by a chromosomal abnormality. Although polygenic disorders ...
s, environmental factors may determine the development of disease in those genetically predisposed to a particular condition.
Stress Stress may refer to: Science and medicine * Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition * Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
,
physical Physical may refer to: * Physical examination, a regular overall check-up with a doctor * ''Physical'' (Olivia Newton-John album), 1981 ** "Physical" (Olivia Newton-John song) * ''Physical'' (Gabe Gurnsey album) * "Physical" (Alcazar song) (2004) * ...
and mental
abuse Abuse is the improper usage or treatment of a thing, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit. Abuse can come in many forms, such as: physical or verbal maltreatment, injury, assault, violation, rape, unjust practices, crimes, or other t ...
,
diet Diet may refer to: Food * Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group * Dieting, the deliberate selection of food to control body weight or nutrient intake ** Diet food, foods that aid in creating a diet for weight loss ...
, exposure to
toxin A toxin is a naturally occurring organic poison produced by metabolic activities of living cells or organisms. Toxins occur especially as a protein or conjugated protein. The term toxin was first used by organic chemist Ludwig Brieger (1849 ...
s,
pathogen In biology, a pathogen ( el, πάθος, "suffering", "passion" and , "producer of") in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism or agent that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a g ...
s,
radiation In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or through a material medium. This includes: * ''electromagnetic radiation'', such as radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visi ...
and
chemicals A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., wit ...
found in almost all personal-care products and household cleaners are common environmental factors that determine a large segment of non-hereditary disease. If a disease process is concluded to be the result of a combination of genetic and ''environmental factor'' influences, its etiological origin can be referred to as having a multifactorial pattern.
Cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...
is often related to environmental factors. Maintaining a healthy weight, eating a healthy diet, minimizing alcohol and eliminating smoking reduces the risk of developing the disease, according to researchers. Environmental triggers for
asthma Asthma is a long-term inflammatory disease of the airways of the lungs. It is characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and easily triggered bronchospasms. Symptoms include episodes of wheezing, co ...
and
autism The autism spectrum, often referred to as just autism or in the context of a professional diagnosis autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or autism spectrum condition (ASC), is a neurodevelopmental condition (or conditions) characterized by difficulti ...
have been studied too.


Exposome

The exposome encompasses the set of human environmental (i.e. non-genetic) exposures from conception onwards, complementing the
genome In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding ...
. The exposome was first proposed in 2005 by cancer epidemiologist Christopher Paul Wild in an article entitled "Complementing the genome with an "exposome": the outstanding challenge of environmental exposure measurement in molecular epidemiology". The concept of the exposome and how to assess it has led to lively discussions with varied views in 2010, 2012,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georg ...
(2012)
"Exposome and Exposomics"
Retrieved 5 March 2013.
2014 and 2021. In his 2005 article, Wild stated, "At its most complete, the exposome encompasses life-course environmental exposures (including lifestyle factors), from the
prenatal Prenatal development () includes the development of the embryo and of the fetus during a viviparous animal's gestation. Prenatal development starts with fertilization, in the germinal stage of embryonic development, and continues in fetal devel ...
period onwards." The concept was first proposed to draw attention to the need for better and more complete environmental exposure data for causal research, in order to balance the investment in genetics. According to Wild, even incomplete versions of the exposome could be useful to
epidemiology Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population. It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evi ...
. In 2012, Wild outlined methods, including personal sensors,
biomarker In biomedical contexts, a biomarker, or biological marker, is a measurable indicator of some biological state or condition. Biomarkers are often measured and evaluated using blood, urine, or soft tissues to examine normal biological processes, p ...
s, and '
omics The branches of science known informally as omics are various disciplines in biology whose names end in the suffix ''-omics'', such as genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, metagenomics, phenomics and transcriptomics. Omics aims at the collective ...
' technologies, to better define the exposome. He described three overlapping domains within the exposome: # a general external environment including the urban environment,
education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty ...
,
climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorologi ...
factors,
social capital Social capital is "the networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society, enabling that society to function effectively". It involves the effective functioning of social groups through interpersonal relationships ...
,
stress Stress may refer to: Science and medicine * Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition * Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
, # a specific external environment with specific
contaminant Contamination is the presence of a constituent, impurity, or some other undesirable element that spoils, corrupts, infects, makes unfit, or makes inferior a material, physical body, natural environment, workplace, etc. Types of contamination Wi ...
s,
radiation In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or through a material medium. This includes: * ''electromagnetic radiation'', such as radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visi ...
,
infection An infection is the invasion of tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable di ...
s, lifestyle factors (e.g.
tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...
,
alcohol Alcohol most commonly refers to: * Alcohol (chemistry), an organic compound in which a hydroxyl group is bound to a carbon atom * Alcohol (drug), an intoxicant found in alcoholic drinks Alcohol may also refer to: Chemicals * Ethanol, one of sev ...
),
diet Diet may refer to: Food * Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group * Dieting, the deliberate selection of food to control body weight or nutrient intake ** Diet food, foods that aid in creating a diet for weight loss ...
,
physical activity Physical activity is defined as any voluntary bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that requires energy expenditure.Global Recommendations on Physical Activity for Health, 2009. World Health Organization. Geneva, Switzerland. Accessed 13/ ...
, etc. # an internal environment to include internal biological factors such as
metabolic Metabolism (, from el, μεταβολή ''metabolē'', "change") is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. The three main functions of metabolism are: the conversion of the energy in food to energy available to run cell ...
factors,
hormones A hormone (from the Greek participle , "setting in motion") is a class of signaling molecules in multicellular organisms that are sent to distant organs by complex biological processes to regulate physiology and behavior. Hormones are required ...
,
gut microflora Gut microbiota, gut microbiome, or gut flora, are the microorganisms, including bacteria, archaea, fungi, and viruses that live in the digestive tracts of animals. The gastrointestinal metagenome is the aggregate of all the genomes of the gut mi ...
,
inflammation Inflammation (from la, inflammatio) is part of the complex biological response of body tissues to harmful stimuli, such as pathogens, damaged cells, or irritants, and is a protective response involving immune cells, blood vessels, and molec ...
,
oxidative stress Oxidative stress reflects an imbalance between the systemic manifestation of reactive oxygen species and a biological system's ability to readily detoxify the reactive intermediates or to repair the resulting damage. Disturbances in the normal ...
. In late 2013, this definition was explained in greater depth in the first book on the exposome. In 2014, the same author revised the definition to include the body's response with its endogenous metabolic processes which alter the processing of chemicals. More recently, evidenced by metabolic exposures in and around the time of pregnancy, the maternal metabolic exposome includes exposures such as maternal obesity/overweight and diabetes, and malnutrition, including high fat/high calorie diets, which are associated with poor fetal, infant and child growth, and increased incidence of obesity and other metabolic disorders in later life.


Measurement

For complex disorders, specific genetic causes appear to account for only 10-30% of the disease incidence, but there has been no standard or systematic way to measure the influence of environmental exposures. Some studies into the interaction of genetic and environmental factors in the incidence of
diabetes Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by a high blood sugar level ( hyperglycemia) over a prolonged period of time. Symptoms often include frequent urination, increased thirst and increased ...
have demonstrated that "environment-wide association studies" (EWAS, or exposome-wide association studies) may be feasible. However, it is not clear what data sets are most appropriate to represent the value of "E".


Research initiatives

As of 2016, it may not be possible to measure or model the full exposome, but several European projects have started to make first attempts. In 2012, the
European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...
awarded two large grants to pursue exposome-related research. The HELIX project at the
Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...
-based Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology was launched around 2014, and aimed to develop an early-life exposome. A second project, Exposomics, based at
Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...
, launched in 2012, aimed to use smartphones utilising GPS and environmental sensors to assess exposures. In late 2013, a major initiative called the "Health and Environment-Wide Associations based on Large Scale population Surveys" or HEALS, began. Touted as the largest environmental health-related study in Europe, HEALS proposes to adopt a paradigm defined by interactions between DNA sequence, epigenetic DNA modifications, gene expression, and environmental factors. In December 2011, the US
National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...
hosted a meeting entitled "Emerging Technologies for Measuring Individual Exposomes." A
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georg ...
overview, "Exposome and Exposomics", outlines the three priority areas for researching the occupational exposome as identified by the
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH, ) is the United States federal agency responsible for conducting research and making recommendations for the prevention of work-related injury and illness. NIOSH is part of the C ...
. The
National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the lat ...
(NIH) has invested in technologies supporting exposome-related research including biosensors, and supports research on
gene–environment interaction Gene–environment interaction (or genotype–environment interaction or G×E) is when two different genotypes respond to environmental variation in different ways. A norm of reaction is a graph that shows the relationship between genes and envi ...
s.


Proposed Human Exposome Project (HEP)

The idea of a Human Exposome Project, analogous to the
Human Genome Project The Human Genome Project (HGP) was an international scientific research project with the goal of determining the base pairs that make up human DNA, and of identifying, mapping and sequencing all of the genes of the human genome from both ...
, has been proposed and discussed in numerous scientific meetings, but as of 2017, no such project exists. Given the lack of clarity on how science would go about pursuing such a project, support has been lacking. Reports on the issue include: *a 2011 review on the exposome and
exposure science Exposure science is the study of the contact between humans (and other organisms) and harmful agents within their environment – whether it be chemical, physical, biological, behavioural or mental stressors – with the aim of identifying the cause ...
by Paul Lioy and Stephen Rappaport, "Exposure science and the exposome: an opportunity for coherence in the environmental health sciences" in the journal ''
Environmental Health Perspectives ''Environmental Health Perspectives'' (''EHP'') is a peer-reviewed open access journal published monthly with support from the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIE ...
''. *a 2012 report from the
United States National Research Council The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (also known as NASEM or the National Academies) are the collective scientific national academy of the United States. The name is used interchangeably in two senses: (1) as an umbrell ...
"Exposure Science in the 21st Century: A Vision and A Strategy", outlining the challenges in systematic evaluations of the exposome.


Related fields

The concept of the exposome has contributed to the 2010 proposal of a new
paradigm In science and philosophy, a paradigm () is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitute legitimate contributions to a field. Etymology ''Paradigm'' comes f ...
in disease
phenotype In genetics, the phenotype () is the set of observable characteristics or traits of an organism. The term covers the organism's morphology (biology), morphology or physical form and structure, its Developmental biology, developmental proc ...
, "the unique disease principle": Every individual has a unique disease process different from any other individual, considering uniqueness of the exposome and its unique influence on molecular pathologic processes including alterations in the interactome. This principle was first described in neoplastic diseases as "the unique tumor principle". Based on this unique disease principle, the interdisciplinary field of molecular pathological epidemiology (MPE) integrates
molecular pathology Molecular pathology is an emerging discipline within pathology which is focused in the study and diagnosis of disease through the examination of molecules within organs, tissues or bodily fluids. Molecular pathology shares some aspects of practice ...
and epidemiology.


Socioeconomic drivers

Global change is driven by many factors; however the five main drivers of global change are: population growth, economic growth, technological advances, attitudes, and institutions. These five main drivers of global change can stem from
socioeconomic Socioeconomics (also known as social economics) is the social science that studies how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes. In general it analyzes how modern societies progress, stagnate, or regress because of their l ...
factors which in turn, these can be seen as drivers in their own regard.  Socioeconomic drivers of climate change can be triggered by a social or economic demand for resources such as a demand for timber or a demand for agricultural crops.  In tropical deforestation for instance, the main driver is economic opportunities that come the extraction of these resources and the conversion of this land to crop or rangelands. These drivers can be manifested at any level, from the global level demand for timber all the way to the household level. An example of how socioeconomic drivers affect
climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...
can be seen in the soy bean trading between Brazil and China. The trading of soy beans from to
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
and
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
has grown immensely in the past few decades. This growth in trade between these two countries is stimulated by socioeconomic drivers. Some of the socioeconomic drivers in play here are the rising demand for Brazilian soy beans in China, the increase in land use change for soy bean production in Brazil, and the importance of strengthening foreign trade between the two countries. All of these socioeconomic drivers have implications in climate change. For instance, an increase in the development for soy bean croplands in Brazil means there needs to be more and more land made available for this resource. This causes the general land cover of forest to be converted into croplands which in its own regard has an impact on the environment. This example of land use change driven by a demand of a resource, isn’t only happening in Brazil with soy bean production. Another example came from The
Renewable Energy Directive 2009 The Renewable Energy Directive 20182018/2001 is a Directive in EU law that requires 32 percent of the energy consumed within the European Union to be renewable by 2030. This target is pooled among the member states. Background Before the 2009 ...
Union when they mandated
biofuel Biofuel is a fuel that is produced over a short time span from biomass, rather than by the very slow natural processes involved in the formation of fossil fuels, such as oil. According to the United States Energy Information Administration ...
development for countries within their membership. With an international socioeconomic driver of increasing the production biofuels comes affects in land use in these countries. When agricultural cropland shift to bioenergy cropland the original crop supply decreases while the global market for this crop increases. This causes a cascading socioeconomic driver for the need for more agricultural croplands to support the growing demand. However, with the lack of available land from the crop substitution to biofuels, countries must look into areas further away to develop these original croplands. This causes spillover systems in countries where this new development takes place. For instance, African countries are converting savanna's into cropland and this all stems from the socioeconomic driver of wanting to develop biofuels. Furthermore, socioeconomic driver that cause land use change don’t all occur at an international level. These drivers can be experienced all the way down to the household level. Crop substitution doesn't only come from biofuel shifts in agriculture, a big substitution came from Thailand when they switched the production of opium poppy plants to non-narcotic crops. This caused Thailand's agricultural sector to grow, but it caused global rippling effects ( opium replacement). For instance, in Wolong China, locals use forests as fuelwood to cook and heat their homes. So, the socioeconomic driver in play here is the local demand for timber to support subsistence in this area. With this driver, locals are depleting their supply for fuelwood so they have to keep moving further away to extract this resource. This movement and demand for timber is in turn contributing to the loss of pandas in this area because their ecosystem is getting destroyed. However, when researching local trends the focus tends to be on outcomes instead of on how changes in the global drivers affect outcomes.Stockholm Environment Institute. ''Linking Global and Local Scenarios under Climate Change''. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2003, www.jstor.org/stable/resrep00343. Accessed 12 Mar. 2020. With this being said, community level planning needs to be implemented when analyzing socioeconomic drivers of change. In conclusion, one can see how socioeconomic drivers at any level play a role in the consequences of human actions on the environment. These drivers all have cascading effects on land, humans, resources, and the environment as a whole. With this being said, humans need to fully understand how their socioeconomic drivers can change the way we live. For instance, going back to the soy bean example, when the supply can’t meet the demand for soy beans the global market for this crop increases which then in turn affects countries that rely on this crop for a food source. These affects can cause a higher price for soy beans at their stores and markets or it can cause an overall lack of availability for this crop in importing countries. With both of these outcomes, the household level is being affected by a national level socioeconomic driver of an increased demand for Brazilian soy beans in China. From just this one example alone, one can see how socioeconomic drivers influence changes at a national level that then lead to more global, regional, communal, and household level changes. The main concept to take away from this is the idea that everything is connected and that our roles and choices as humans have major driving forces that impact our world in numerous ways.


See also

* Accidental injury *
Ecophysiology Ecophysiology (from Greek , ''oikos'', "house(hold)"; , ''physis'', "nature, origin"; and , '' -logia''), environmental physiology or physiological ecology is a biological discipline that studies the response of an organism's physiology to enviro ...
* Envirome *
Environmental disease In epidemiology, environmental diseases are diseases that can be directly attributed to environmental factors (as distinct from genetic factors or infection). Apart from the true monogenic genetic disorders, which are rare, environment is a maj ...
*
Environmental health Environmental health is the branch of public health concerned with all aspects of the natural and built environment affecting human health. In order to effectively control factors that may affect health, the requirements that must be met in ...
*
Epidemiology Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population. It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evi ...
*
Epidemiology of cancer The epidemiology of cancer is the study of the factors affecting cancer, as a way to infer possible trends and causes. The study of cancer epidemiology uses epidemiological methods to find the cause of cancer and to identify and develop impro ...
*
Exposure science Exposure science is the study of the contact between humans (and other organisms) and harmful agents within their environment – whether it be chemical, physical, biological, behavioural or mental stressors – with the aim of identifying the cause ...
*
Heritability Heritability is a statistic used in the fields of breeding and genetics that estimates the degree of ''variation'' in a phenotypic trait in a population that is due to genetic variation between individuals in that population. The concept of her ...
*
Hygiene hypothesis In medicine, the hygiene hypothesis states that early childhood exposure to particular microorganisms (such as the gut flora and helminth parasites) protects against allergic diseases by contributing to the development of the immune system. In pa ...
*
Occupational toxicology Occupational toxicology is the application of toxicology to chemical hazards in the workplace. It focuses on substances and conditions that occur in workplaces, where inhalation exposure and dermal exposure are most important, there is often exp ...
*
Public health Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the det ...
*
Quantitative genetics Quantitative genetics deals with phenotypes that vary continuously (such as height or mass)—as opposed to discretely identifiable phenotypes and gene-products (such as eye-colour, or the presence of a particular biochemical). Both branches u ...
*
Toxicology Toxicology is a scientific discipline, overlapping with biology, chemistry, pharmacology, and medicine, that involves the study of the adverse effects of chemical substances on living organisms and the practice of diagnosing and treating e ...


References


External links


"TAU Expert Reviews Environmental Triggers (hairspray! Lipstick!) Of Common Autoimmune Diseases"
''
Medical News Today ''Medical News Today'' is a web-based outlet for medical information and news, targeted at both the general public and physicians. All posted content is available online (>250,000 articles as of January 2014), and the earliest available article ...
''. {{DEFAULTSORT:Environmental factor Diseases and disorders Environmental health