Health risk assessment and development of human health ambient water quality criteria for PBDEs in China

Highlights: • The primary exposure pathway of PBDEs for Chinese ordinary residents was dust. • The primary exposure pathway of PBDEs for Chinese concerned residents was diet. • PBDEs did not pose a risk to Chinese ordinary residents. • The risk of PBDEs for Chinese concerned residents exceeded the threshold. • The Chinese human health ambient water quality criteria for PBDEs were derived. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are not only a class of highly efficient brominated flame retardants (BFRs) but also a class of typical persistent organic pollutants (POPs) that are persistent and widely distributed in various environmental media. This study examined the concentrations of PBDEs in five environmental media (water, soil, air, dust, and food) and two human body media (human milk and blood) in China from 2010 to 2020. In addition, this study conducted multi-pathway exposure health risk assessments of populations of different ages in urban, rural, key regions, and industrial factories using the Monte-Carlo simulation. Finally, the human health ambient water quality criteria (AWQC) of eight PBDEs were derived using Chinese exposure parameters and bioaccumulation factors (BAFs). The results showed that the eastern and southeastern coastal regions of China were heavily polluted by PBDEs, and the variation trends of the ΣPBDEs concentrations in the different exposure media were not consistent. PBDEs did not pose a risk to urban and rural residents in ordinary regions, but the hazard indexes (HIs) for residents in key regions and occupational workers exceeded the safety threshold. Dust exposure was the primary exposure pathway for urban and rural residents in ordinary regions, but for residents in key regions and occupational workers, dietary exposure was the primary exposure pathway. BDE-209 was found to be the most serious individual PBDE congener in China. The following human health AWQC values of the PBDEs were derived: drinking water exposure: 0.233–65.2 μg·L⁻¹; and drinking water and aquatic products exposure: 8.51 × 10⁻⁴–1.10 μg·L⁻¹.