Indoor exposure to selected flame retardants and quantifying importance of environmental, human behavioral and physiological parameters

Indoor exposure to organic flame retardants (FRs) has raised extensive concern due to associated adverse health effects. Indoor-exposure induced daily intakes of six widely used FRs individually ranged 0.002–611 ng/day and 0.02–463 ng/day, respectively, for adults and 2–6-year-old children; and resulting internal exposure levels ranged 0.1–159 and 2.1–4500 ng/g lipid, respectively. A proportion of 0.001–5.9% and 0.006–10.3% of individual FRs emitted into indoor air ultimately entered bodies of adults and children respectively. Tris(2-chloroisopropyl)phosphate dominated in emissions, whilst 2-ethylhexyl-2,3,4,5-tetrabromobenzoate dominated in human bodies. Hand-to-mouth contact was the most important exposure pathway for less volatile FRs including most brominated FRs, whilst inhalation was the predominant intake pathway of tris(2-chloroisopropyl)phosphate. Relative importance of 29 environmental, behavioral and physiological parameters was ranked to explore key drivers influencing exposure and accumulation of FRs in humans. Results suggested that frequent bathing and handwashing can reduce exposure effectively, especially for children. Bodyweight and lipid fraction were only positively related to internal accumulation and body-weight-normalized concentrations of compounds with low metabolic rates (half-lives ≥103 h) in humans. Our findings help control indoor exposure to FRs and are supportive of human exposome studies in the future. [Display omitted] •Hand-to-mouth contact is the most important exposure route for less volatile flame retardants.•Relative importance of environmental, behavioral and physiological parameters was ranked.•Global sensitivity analysis method was superior to local sensitivity analysis in evaluating input variables.•Bathing and handwashing frequencies are top factors for children indoor exposure to flame retardants.