An environmental chemical can be defined as a chemical substance, either human-made or natural, that is present in the environment and to which humans may be exposed through media such as air, water, food, soil, dust, or consumer products.ĭata from previous cycles have been published in four Health Canada reports, the most recent of which, the Fourth Report on Human Biomonitoring of Environmental Chemicals in Canada, was published in August 2017 (Health Canada, 2017). Hair measures were also included for a subsample of participants in cycle 5. The CHMS biomonitoring component measures many environmental chemicals and/or their metabolites in the blood and urine of survey participants. Biological specimens were analyzed for indicators of health status, chronic and infectious diseases, nutritional status, and environmental chemicals.
Statistics Canada, in partnership with Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada, launched the CHMS in 2007 to collect health and wellness data and biological specimens on a nationally representative sample of Canadians. These data were collected as part of an ongoing national direct health measures survey called the Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS). These data tables present national data on concentrations of environmental chemicals in Canadians. A special thank you goes out to the participants of the survey, without whom this study would not be possible. The development and implementation of the biomonitoring component of the Canadian Health Measures Survey was achieved through extensive contributions of programs and staff across Health Canada and Statistics Canada. With assistance from: Andrew Belknap, Kathy Nguyen, Eric Vaillancourt. This document was made possible by the efforts of the following staff of the National Biomonitoring Program of Health Canada: Annie St-Amand (Section Head), Jeff Willey (Report Lead), Kate Werry (Report Coordinator), Sarah Faure, Subramanian Karthikeyan, Pascale Lyonnais-Gagnon, Christine MacKinnon-Roy, Tyler Pollock, Julie Yome.