Alberta Biomonitoring: Serum Chemicals in Pregnant Women and Children

Three province-wide studies measuring internal doses of environmental chemicals in serum samples. The program collected data from pregnant women across northern, central, and southern Alberta, children in southern Alberta, and maternal and umbilical cord blood from 7 cities. Results are presented as mean concentrations with standard errors or 95% confidence intervals, including lipid-adjusted values and detection limits.

Use Cases

• Establishing exposure benchmarks for tracking future trends based on the program's stated goal.
• Assessing health risks from environmental chemicals based on internal dose measurements.
• Identifying potential exposure sources using the chemical concentration data across different regions and age groups.
• Prioritizing research efforts by comparing detected chemical levels against limits of detection and quantification.

Strengths

• Data is derived from three distinct province-wide studies (Phases 1, 2, and 3).
• Results include both whole serum and lipid-adjusted concentrations for many chemicals.
• Statistical measures like standard error and 95% confidence intervals are provided for mean concentrations.
• Reporting criteria are explicitly defined (results reported if ≥25% of pooled samples had detectable concentrations).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the Alberta-specific sampling.

Provenance

Source

Government of Alberta

Collection Method

Biomonitoring studies analyzing pooled serum samples from pregnant women and children.

Time Range

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Freshness

Last updated 2026-03 07:01:54.149639; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Alberta, Canada (northern, central, and southern regions, 7 cities)