Exposome and social sciences: the promise of a meeting?

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exposome

The concept of exposure aims to identify the complex causes of chronic diseases related to the environment. It builds on knowledge that has been well established in epidemiology for at least forty years, potentially creating a bridge between disciplines interested in environmental health (medicine, biomedical sciences, epidemiology, social sciences). This text proposes to see how, under the banner of the exposome, we can envisage intensified collaborations between all these disciplines that question socio-environmental determinants, and how the implementation of these collaborative works can still prove difficult today. The contribution of the social sciences to environment-related health issues still faces the relative closure of the approach and methods developed by the biomedical sciences, and by epidemiology in particular. Conversely, social scientists themselves may be reluctant to work in tandem with sciences that do not study social relations as such, and systematically quantify and individualize the phenomena they observe. The potential for interdisciplinary collaboration in exposures requires the design of research programmes covering a broad spectrum of approaches and methods, from the measurement of biomarkers by molecular biology to an ethnographic study of living and working conditions.

The third National Health and Environment Plan (PNSE3, 2015-2019) highlighted the concept of exposure as a key to understanding the complexity of exposures to pathogens responsible for many chronic diseases. Article 1 of Act No. 2016-41 [1] on the modernization of our health system, passed in 2016, consolidated this first institutional step, by stipulating that monitoring the state of health of the population and its determinants must be based on the exposome, understood as “the lifelong integration of all exposures that may influence human health”.

Borrowed from epidemiology, the notion of exposome was first proposed in 2005 by Christopher P. Wild [2] who has been involved for a long time in research on the environmental aspects of carcinogenesis. The notion of exposome – which presents a hermetic technical approach – is therefore included in a major law reforming the health system of President Holland.

This article proposes: a) to explain the notion of exposome from a historical perspective; b) to place the exposome within a broad disciplinary framework that includes epidemiology [3], biomedical sciences and social sciences. How can we define “environment” and “health” (in particular its social determinants) to ensure that all the disciplines concerned work together?

1. Exposure, mirror and complement of the genome

1.1. A brief history of the exposome

On October 12, 2018, PubMed – the most widely used search engine in the world in the fields of biology, medicine and epidemiology – lists 351 works whose title or abstract contains the word “exposome”, since the August 2005 original article. This number of studies is obviously modest compared to very broad and much older fields of biomedical knowledge (200,686 occurrences for “tuberculosis” at the same date, the first dating back to 1853). However, the growth in the volume of publications (there were only 260 one year earlier, for example) attests to a certain dynamic of research on the exposome, and the fact that health policy (PNSE3 and law n° 2016-41) has also brought itself into line with the exposome shows the interest generated by the notion. A closer examination of the publications reviewed by PubMed makes it possible to clarify matters: not only do doctors, toxicologists, epidemiologists and biologists use the exposome as a framework for their research on the toxicity of “exposures” to the human body, but they also regularly discuss the very notion of exposome in an attempt to determine its practical applicability.

In practice, the exposome is used to think about health in relation to the environment, and reflections are well underway on how to give it operational content. How to move from the concept of exposure to the practical implementation of research devices to measure it? What must be measured to discover harmful “exposures” to health, and how?

… But before we continue, let’s start by asking ourselves what the exposome is.

1.2. The public policy perspective

Figure 1. Excerpt from Article 1 of Act No. 2016-41 on the modernisation of our health system, amending Book IV of Part I of the Public Health Code (Art. L. 1411-1)

Several definitions of exposome were formulated during the vote on the January 2016 law. The one retained by Article 1 of the Act emphasizes that potentially harmful exposures to health can accumulate over a lifetime (Figure 1).

In the rest of the text, there is an explicit reference to exposures to ultraviolet rays, asbestos and ionizing radiation, as well as the definition of toxicovigilance as having as its purpose the “monitoring and assessment of toxic effects on humans” of exposure to substances which, whether natural or manufactured, may cause acute or chronic health problems. In all parliamentary debates, public actors are keen to find policies adapted to addressing the links between social phenomena and their health challenges.

The dissemination of the concept of the exposome in the public debate, in particular by Gérard Bapt, MP who initiated the registration of the exposome in the law, takes up the idea suggested by the title of Christopher P. Wild’s first article: the exposome is justified as an instrument for complementary knowledge of genetics to understand the incidence and development of chronic diseases. Not that medicine had ever imagined that chronic diseases could be explained by purely genetic factors. But the giant strides made by genome research in recent years have provided explanations for many diseases, and above all have made it possible to provide operational therapeutic approaches (particularly for cancers). The exposome aims to complement this approach and the privileged capacity of genetics to reason at the population level by exploring non-genetic determinants of health.

1.3. The Biomedical Sciences Perspective

diagramme exposome - exposome - diagram exposom
Figure 2. Diagram showing three different areas of the exposome, with examples illustrating the components of each of these three areas (from Wild, 2012, International Journal of Epidemiology 41, 1, p24-32). Translation of the three spheres: General external factors: Social capital, level of education, standard of living, stress, urban-rural environment, climate, etc. Specific external factors: Ionizing radiation, infectious agents, chemical contaminants and environmental pollutants, diet, lifestyle characteristics (e. g. tobacco, alcohol), occupational activity, medical interventions. Internal factors: metabolism, endogenous hormones, body morphology, physical activity, intestinal microbiota, inflammation, lipid peroxidation, oxidative stress, aging, etc. [Source: © Encyclopedia of the Environment, from Wild, 2012, International Journal of Epidemiology 41, 1, p24-32]
Biomedical sciences do not oppose “genetic” to “non-genetic” in a binary way. The latter is highly complex, which implies a renewal of the concepts of “exposure” and “environment”. In particular, the “environment” in which the “exposures” that participate in the exposome are located should not be described as a reality that is simply external to the human body (Figure 2).

While the common representation of “environment” or “exposures” most often refers to toxic agents (such as asbestos, etc.), exposure is not reduced to them. In addition to these specific “external” agents (potentially toxic physical or chemical agents), it also includes socio-cultural, socio-economic and socio-environmental (“external general”) factors of our health (level of education, standard of living, urban living environment, etc.). The environment of organs also includes an internal dimension, made up of both physico-chemical elements such as hormones, mechanisms that regulate their secretion or regulation in the body (metabolism, oxidative stress, etc.) and elements that can be found in the human body, such as in the case of micro-organisms (fungi, viruses, bacteria, etc.) grouped under the term “microbiota” (read Human microbiotes: allies for our health).

In passing, we see how the exposome lends itself to multidisciplinarity, by inviting us to explore the social determinants of health and their interactions with biological processes.

The essential thing is to develop systemic research – exposure – on all parameters, from a globalizing, transversal point of view: the focus must be on health determinants, all now defined as environmental, and interacting with each other. Here again, it is understood that the exposome may have a great interest in soliciting a social science survey approach because, from this perspective, the diseases that a person living on the street may declare can no longer be understood as those suffered by a person with a high standard of living and who is in protected material (work, housing) conditions (see Environmental Inequalities).

epidemiological triangle agent-host-environment
Figure 3. The epidemiological triangle (or triad) “agent-host-environment”. [Source: © Encyclopedia of the Environment]
The “agent-host-host-environment” triangle (Figure 3), a common place in epidemiology to explain the occurrence of infectious diseases (then non-communicable diseases), is thus established, but also disrupted. “Agents” (inorganic particles or biological components) can influence the health of the individual and his or her characteristics, including genetic characteristics, in a given “environment” (for example, the professional context). But the environment is not only this external sphere from which potentially toxic “agents” are active. The individual organism itself is part of the environment, is traversed by it, and interacts with all its components.

In a very contemporary way, the exposome fits into the rapidly expanding landscape of “-omics” sciences and technologies, including “genomics”, which proposes to discover the “genome”. In this research on the biological determinants of health, however, it should be noted that exposure holds a special place: by “complementing” genomics, it embraces all other “internal” -omics approaches (Figure 2). Among these sciences, exposomics is therefore an interlocutor of genomics, which offers to synthesize the knowledge of other more analytical approaches -omics (metabolome, proteome, etc.). Proteomics thus aims to characterize all the proteins in the body, and metabolomics all the small molecules involved in metabolism.

Let’s go back to the question: how to make the measurement of the exposure operational? Its challenge is to respond to the gigantic enterprise of the GWAS (whole genome association study). Studying very many genetic variations in very many individuals, GWAS looks for possible links between genetic variations and variations in the characteristics of individuals (phenotypes). GWAS and exposomics come together with the intention of understanding why one person rather than another is likely to develop a chronic disease during their lifetime, taking into account the multiplicity of possible genetic combinations, in a multiplicity of possible environments.

Statistics and megadata (big data [4]) therefore play a crucial role in the possible dialogue between genomics and exposure. Tracing an individual’s exposure is a way of characterizing, through molecular biology, the specific signature (biomarkers) left by the effects of his exposures. But it is not enough to determine the relevant biomarkers to determine whether or not a person has been exposed to a toxic agent; exposures must also be investigated through questionnaires. The objective is to determine individual genetic susceptibilities, and to find correlations and modulations between diseases (identified by the alteration of a biomarker) and environmental factors (the three spheres presented in Figure 2). It is this approach that, overall, is behind the Human Early Life Exposome (HELIX) project, which tracks, for several cohorts recruited from different countries, a broad set of exposures in utero and during childhood, and examines their correlations with health states observed during childhood and with “molecular omics signatures” [5].

2. Studying environmental health through exposure: a difficult inter- or trans-disciplinarity

2.1. Back to social epidemiology?

The exposomic approach does not invent the idea of collaboration between social sciences and biomedical sciences, but it offers in principle the opportunity to make this tandem more effective, through a systemic vision of the environment. In the study of internal cellular mechanisms, sociological and ethnographic work is combined to understand the material conditions and social practices that contribute to the socio-environmental determinants of health. This is what the proposal of the exposome potentially opens up. The intersection between all these disciplines is not new, if we remember the social concerns (hygiene and prevention, from a public health perspective) of epidemiology at its origins [6]. The dialogue between sociology and (social) epidemiology is old… and yet the “conflicts” [7] that have crossed epidemiology over the past three decades make interdisciplinary collaboration a hot topic. Over this period, epidemiologists have indeed opposed each other along at least two main lines of controversy: should epidemiology deal with social issues and what type of causality and interactions should it account for? The two questions are linked since entering into the depths of social contexts is a move away from reasoning that reduces risk factors to individual characteristics that, such as gender, tend to biologize the determinants of health [8].

In these fierce controversies, Ezra and Mervyn W. Susser, along with a few other South African public health physicians and epidemiologists, have been mediators, advocates of social epidemiology or “eco-epidemiology” that does not exclude other levels of analysis [9]. For them, studying the social conditions of existence and doing research in molecular biology are not mutually exclusive, quite the contrary.

However respected Susser’s reflection may be, however, the research avenues – such as the exposome – most likely to open up interdisciplinary collaborations remain in practice largely cut off from the social sciences and their research tools. In epidemiological studies (mostly Anglo-Saxon), some characteristics of individuals can even be deliberately treated in an instrumental way [10]. For example, being “white” or “black” is taken as a matter of course a priori, as shown by the racialized variables constantly mobilized by epidemiology. Biomedical research takes these categories as data and does not question them to try to understand what social heterogeneity can cover this clear-cut opposition. And yet, it is recognized that only 15% of the genetic diversity between individuals of the human species is based on differences between groups commonly recognized as “racial”, while the remaining 85% of human genetic diversity is found within racial groups, i.e. between individuals of the “same race” [11].

While the exposome and the environmentalist definition of health on which it is based call on the social and biomedical sciences to interpenetrate, why do the latter ignore the former so radically? Do the social sciences also bear some responsibility for this failed transdisciplinary marriage? This question does not receive a general answer.

2.2. Proposals for collaboration between disciplines: popular epidemiology and environmental justice movements

It should first be recalled that some social scientists have worked on this type of marriage, particularly with the development of “popular epidemiology[12]. For thirty years, Phil Brown has shown that populations affected by specific health problems (cancer clusters, for example) are subject to local contamination, where “standard” epidemiological studies do not prove conclusive. Working on small samples (a neighbourhood, a street, etc.), this epidemiology involves the populations concerned in the development of field research tools. By collaborating with epidemiologists and social scientists, these residents analyze the occurrence of diseases by highlighting the social factors that can contribute to them: on what empty fields will children play? (This is illustrated in the cover photo of this article.) Do some poor residents recover garbage dumped in a particular place that was previously contaminated with toxic waste? etc.

protestation love canal
Figure 4. Protest movement of Love Canal residents (around 1978)[Source : Wikimedia commons, Public domain]
Here, popular epidemiology meets the social movements that, since the late 1970s, have been promoting “environmental justice[13] in the United States, denouncing the social inequalities in exposure to environmental risks faced by certain communities (black, Latino, native American) in residential areas that combine health risks (air pollution, water pollution, nearby industrial waste storage, etc.).

After founding events (Love Canal [14], Figure 4), and with some tutelary figures from several disciplines, American environmental health research is certainly the one in which the expository and social sciences find themselves discussing most closely, with and thanks to the institutional and financial support of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) [15]. Among other representatives of this interdisciplinarity, we can mention the sociologist Phil Brown who explicitly invites us to go beyond the exposome to develop research that integrates a concept of “socio-exposome” [16] ; but also biologist Rachel Carson, author of the event book Silent Spring, who, as early as 1962, denounced the polluting effects of pesticides and the concealment of their effects by DDT-producing industries; or Sandra Steingraber, also a biologist, whose research claims to be that of an ecologist who originally relied on her own experience of cancer to denounce chemical contamination (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Rachel Carson, Sandra Steingraber, Phil Brown: three leading figures in American environmental health research[Source: Left, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons; Center, Becker1999 from Grove City, OH[CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons; Right, permission received by Phil Brown]
Despite their importance and visibility, these examples are not enough to create a perfect and operational integration between the life sciences and the social sciences. Obstacles remain. Fear and mistrust of the human and social sciences towards the life sciences, different uses of quantification between disciplines, or technocratic management (by specialized engineering bodies) of the “management” of the environment (water, forests, etc.) have historically contributed to curbing or delaying investment by the sociology of the environmental field.

front industriel fos sur mer
Figure 6. Le front industriel à Fos-sur-Mer, October 2015 [Source: © Yolaine Ferrier]
Outside the Anglo-Saxon (and especially North American) context, there is little research that centrally questions social inequalities through the prism of environmental inequality [17]. The Fos EPSEAL research project (Figure 6), a rare project conducted in France under the colours of a “locally anchored” epidemiology, also mobilizes – and significantly – a Franco-American team to “systematically describe health states, in relation to the environment, in two cities marked by a history of industrial pollution and controversies in environmental health” [18]. Revealing the difficulties of establishing interdisciplinary collaborations and the participation of the populations concerned in the production of data on the health damage caused by pollution in France, the results of Fos EPSEAL were evaluated by Public Health France [19] via a referral to the Agence régionale de santé Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur, which concluded in a reserved manner on the methods implemented.

In the cautiously formulated criticism of Fos EPSEAL – a project supported by the Agence Nationale de Sécurité Sanitaire de l’alimentation, de l’environnement et du travail (PNREST Anses, Cancer ITMO AVIESAN, 2014/1/023)… and therefore also by Santé publique France ! -The controversy between standard epidemiological techniques and an interpretation considered to be in favour of exposure and disease prevalence data is never resolved. In a word, the French Public Health report concludes that the results of Fos EPSEAL are of great interest, while indicating that their production methods would benefit from being more clearly stated and more rigorous, and stating that these results are “complementary to the traditional epidemiological approach”. The legitimacy of popular epidemiology is obviously not fully established, despite the euphemisms in the wording… The discussions are in any case not closed, as indicated in a press release dated 20 March 2018, by which the Fos EPSEAL research team takes note of the comments in the French Public Health report, by reviewing the conformity of the survey methods with academic criteria, and by stressing the importance of involving the local populations concerned in the research, so that epidemiological data can also be interpreted through lived experience.

Figure 7. An extract from the tools used by the SILICOSIS project in the MINASARC case-control study to shed light on the possible role of exposure to inorganic particles in the etiology of sarcoidosis. On the left: the reconstruction of exposures (occupational and non-occupational) to inorganic particles over a lifetime by a questionnaire. Right: Mineralogical analysis of bronchoalveolar lavage of patients and controls all interviewed with the same questionnaire: a) Scanning electron microscope; b) Photo of mineral particles from bronchoalveolar lavage and deposited on a filter; c) Spectrum of elementary composition of a particle. [Source: © MINAPATH]
In addition, a sociology of health has yet to be developed in France and elsewhere, which would really implement an environmental – relational – definition of health, namely a conception of health through its relations (organic and social) with the environment [20]. Other research projects have begun to work in this direction, mobilizing both social science and socio-demographic survey methods in the general population, as well as questions and instruments from the field of experimental sciences (including mineralogy), epidemiology and medicine (pneumology, internal medicine, radiology, etc.) (Figure 7 : the SILICOSIS project).

In total, this would describe the gap that remains between disciplinary approaches, despite the research that is attempting to close it:

  • On the one hand, research that explicitly mobilizes the notion of exposure is carried out mainly by teams dedicated to life sciences. They can certainly investigate by questionnaire, but in a rather instrumental way, with the final aim of highlighting the molecular signature of exposures in the human body.
  • On the other hand, more social science-based approaches, although not necessarily referring to the notion of exposure, develop the study of the social conditions of exposure to toxic substances over the entire – and “locally anchored” – course of people’s lives. Here, the survey by questionnaires and observations is central, and the integration of the approach only exceptionally reaches molecular biology.

2.3. to break out of the impasses of an asocial study of diseases of unknown causes

With regard to the exposome, it is common to speak of a new “paradigm”, as illustrated by the parliamentary debates on the 2016 Health Act. This suggests that the exposome catalyzes around it a community of researchers and, beyond that, decision-makers who use this notion. But researchers in oomics sciences explain to us that it is difficult to “measure” the exposome and that there is no ideal practical device to make the exposome operational.

To formulate proposals in this sense, we must remember that the sheer size of the technical means does not guarantee that all the mysteries of the diseases hitherto unexplained can be solved. Thus, the socio-demographic variables (e.g. socio-professional categories, age, sex) mobilized in the Global Burden of Disease [21] (GBD), a statistical project of unparalleled historical magnitude, explain only a very small portion of the disability-adjusted life expectancy (“DALYs”) for many chronic diseases (including chronic respiratory diseases). While the same GBD estimates that nearly a quarter [22] of global morbidity, mortality and disability are due to environmental factors, the social characterization of diseases is therefore a blind spot… or almost. In other words, while “the environment” is statistically highlighted as a crucial explanatory factor of health status, this result does not translate into a description of the social characteristics of the populations affected by a particular chronic disease. As if what was described as the “environment” was mysteriously to remain an asocial black box.

The intellectual and philosophical context of North America, which is environmentalist, certainly brings “social scientists” and “biomedical scientists” closer together. But most of them are still sceptical or indifferent about the possibilities of collaborating with the social sciences… and vice versa! However, the situation in countries such as South Africa, which today has a high prevalence of infectious diseases (HIV, tuberculosis) and a growing incidence of diseases of unknown etiology (e.g. autoimmune diseases), is a real challenge for scientific analysis. A challenge that will only be met if each of the disciplines involved takes a step towards its counterparts, towards a truly collaborative and integrated approach to the disciplines. The exposome holds the promise.

 


Notes and references

Cover image. [Source: Royalty-free image, Pixabay]

[1] https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jo_pdf.do?id=JORFTEXT000031912641 (page consulted on August 28, 2017)

[2] Wild C.P. 2005. Complementing the genome with an “exposome”: the outstanding challenge of environmental exposure measurement in molecular epidemiology. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, 14, 8, 1847-1850.

[3] Epidemiology studies, within populations, the statistical distribution of health problems over time and space, as well as the role of the factors that determine them. It is complementary to biomedical sciences that study biological processes.

[4] Techniques for computer analysis of huge datasets.

[5] Wild CP. 2012. The exposome. From concept to utility. International Journal of Epidemiology, 41, 1, 24-32.

Maitre L., de Bont Jeroen, Casas Maribel et al. 2018. Human Early Life Exposome (HELIX) study: a European population-based exposome cohort. BMJ Open, 8: e021311. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2017-021311

[6] Winslow CEA. 1920. The Untilled Fields of Public Health. Science, New Series, 51, 1306, 23-33.

[7] Poole C, Rothman KJ. 1998. Our conscientious objection to the epidemiology wars. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 52, 10, 613-614. The same could be said of the study of obesity or smoking-related diseases, for example.

[8] Peretti-Watel P. 2004. The use of the epidemiological paradigm for the study of risk behaviours. Revue française de sociologie, 45, 1, 103-132.

[9] Susser M, Susser E. 1996. Choosing a Future for Epidemiology. I. Eras and Paradigms, American Journal of Public Health, 86, 5, 668-673. And: Choosing a Future for Epidemiology. II. From Black Box to Chinese Boxes and Eco-Epidemiology, American Journal of Public Health, 86, 5, 674-677.

[10] Shim JK, Weatherford Darling K, Lappe MD, Thomson LK, Soo-Jin Lee S, Hiattt RA, Ackerman SL. 2014. Homogeneity and heterogeneity as situational properties: Producing – and moving beyond? – race in post-genomic science. Social Studies of Science, 44, 4, 579-599.

[11] Lewontin Richard. 1972. The apportionment of human diversity in Theodosius Dobzhansky, Max K. Hecht, William C. Steere (eds.), Evolutionary Biology, Volume 6. New York: Appleton-Century-Croft, 381-398.

[12] Brown P. 1992 Popular epidemiology and toxic waste contamination: lay and professional ways of knowing, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 33, 3, 267-281.

[13] Brown P., Morello-Frosch R, Zzavestoski S and the Contested Illnesses Research Group (eds.). 2012. Contested Illnesses. Citizens, Science and Health Social Movements. Berkeley, LA, London: University of California Press.

[14] https://www.justice.gov/enrd/us-v-occidental-chem-corp (page consulted on October 12, 2018)

[15] Hoover E, Renauld M, Edelstein MR, Brown P. 2015. Social Science Collaboration with Environmental Health. Environmental Health Perspectives, 123, 11, 1100-1106.

[16] Senier L., Brown P., Shostak S., Bridget H. 2017. The socio-exposome: advancing exposure science and environmental justice in a postgenomic era. Environmental sociology, 3, 2, pp. 107-121.

[17] Chaumel M., La Branche S. 2008. Ecological inequalities: towards which definition? Espaces, populations et sociétés, 1, p. 101-110. Larrère C (dir.). 2017. Environmental inequalities. Paris: PUF, La Vie des idées.

[18] https://f-origin.hypotheses.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/3282/files/2017/01/FOS-EPSEAL-ANSES-16-1-2017-logo-red.pdf (page consulted on October 12, 2018).

[19] http://invs.santepubliquefrance.fr/Publications-et-outils/Rapports-et-syntheses/Environnement-et-sante/2018/Rapport-d-analyse-de-l-etude-Fos-Epseal (page consulted on October 12, 2018).

[20] See Canguilhem G. 2009[1952]. La connaissance du vivant, Chapter III: “Le vivant et son milieu”, p. 165-197. Paris: Vrin (Bibliothèque des textes philosophiques).

[21] GBD 2013 DALYs and HALE Collaborators. 2015. Global, regional, and national disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) for 306 diseases and injuries and healthy life expectancy (HALE) for 188 countries, 1990-2013: quantifying the epidemiological transition. The Lancet, 386, 2145-91.

[22] Prüss-Ustün A, Wolf J, Corvalán C, Bos R, Neira M. 2016. Preventing disease through healthy environments. A global assessment of the burden of disease from environmental risks. Geneva?


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To cite this article: CAVALIN Catherine (February 11, 2019), Exposome and social sciences: the promise of a meeting?, Encyclopedia of the Environment, Accessed September 18, 2024 [online ISSN 2555-0950] url : https://www.encyclopedie-environnement.org/en/society/exposome-social-sciences-promise-of-meeting/.

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暴露组与社会科学——会议的承诺?

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exposome

  暴露的概念旨在确定与环境有关的慢性疾病的复杂原因。它建立在流行病学至少40年历史的知识基础之上,在环境健康相关学科(医学、生物医学科学、流行病学、社会科学)之间架起一座桥梁。本文将探讨如何在暴露组的旗帜下,加强质疑社会环境决定因素的各学科之间的合作,分析这些学科难以开展合作的原因。社会科学对环境相关健康问题的贡献仍面临着生物医学,尤其是流行病学所开发的方式和方法的相对封闭性。相反,社会科学家本身可能不愿意与不研究社会关系,不系统地量化和个性化他们所观察到的现象的科学合作。要想在暴露问题上开展跨学科合作,就必须设计出涵盖各种方法和手段的研究计划,从分子生物学的生物标志物测量到生活和工作条件的人种学研究,不一而足。

  第三个《国家卫生与环境计划》(PNSE3, 2015-2019)强调了暴露这一概念,认为它是了解导致许多慢性病病原体暴露的关键。2016年通过的关于卫生系统现代化的第2016-41[1]号法案第一条,巩固了制度化的第一步,规定监测人口健康状况及其决定因素必须以暴露组为基础。暴露组被理解为“影响人类健康的所有暴露的终生结合”

  长期从事环境致癌方面研究的克里斯托弗·保罗·威德[2]于2005年首次从流行病学中借用了“暴露组”这一概念。随后,“暴露组”概念——它提出了一种密封技术方法——被纳入了荷兰总统卫生系统改革的重要法律条文中。

  本文提出:1)从历史的角度解释“暴露组”的概念;2)将暴露组置于包括流行病学[3]、生物医学科学和社会科学的广泛的学科框架内。如何定义“环境”和“健康”(特别是其社会决定因素),以确保所有相关学科共同协作?

1. 基因组的暴露、镜像和补充

1.1. 暴露组简史

  2018年10月12日,生物学、医学和流行病学领域使用最广泛的搜索引擎PubMed列出了2005年8月之后发表的,标题或摘要中包含“exposome(暴露组)”一词的351篇文献。与生物医学知识中其他历史悠久的领域相比,暴露组的研究数量显然并不多(在同一日期检索“肺结核”,有200686条检索结果。最早可追溯到1853年)。然而,出版物数量的增长(例如,一年前只有260篇)证明了暴露组研究具有一定活力。卫生政策(PNSE3和法律n°2016-41)也涉及暴露组概念,表明了这一概念所引发的广泛关注。对PubMed网站上的文章进行仔细研究后,我们发现:医生、毒理学家、流行病学家和生物学家不仅将暴露组作为研究“暴露”对人体毒性的框架,还经常讨论暴露组这一概念,以确定其实际适用性。

  在实践中,人们通过暴露组来思考与环境相关的健康问题,同时也在思考如何赋予其可操作性内容。如何从暴露的概念转向研究设备的实施测量?为了发现对健康有害的“暴露”,必须测量什么,如何测量?

  ……在继续讨论之前,让我们先自问什么是“暴露组”。

1.2. 公众政策视角

环境百科全书-暴露组学与社会科学:会议的承诺?-摘录自关于法国卫生系统现代化的第2016-41号法案第1条
图1. 摘自关于法国卫生系统现代化的第2016-41号法案第1条。该法案修订了《公共卫生法》第一部分第四卷(Art.L.1411-1)内容
(译者注:图片所述内容为:“卫生政策应包括:1°监测和评估人口健康状况并查明其主要决定因素,特别是教育、生活和工作条件相关的因素,确定这些决定因素的依据是暴露的概念,即可能影响人类健康的所有暴露的终生结合)

  在对2016年1月的法律进行表决期间,制定了“暴露组”的几个定义。该法案第1条所保留的定义强调,对健康有害的潜在暴露可在人的一生中累积(图1)。

  该法案明确提到了紫外线、石棉和电离辐射的暴露,以及毒物警戒的定义。毒物警戒的目的是“监测和评估”暴露于可能导致急性或慢性健康问题的天然或人造物质“对人类的毒性影响”。在所有的议会辩论中,公共行为者都热衷于寻找适合解决社会现象与其健康挑战之间联系的政策。

  暴露组概念在公众辩论中的传播,尤其是把该概念纳入法律条文的国会议员热拉尔∙巴普特的传播,延续克里斯托弗·保罗·威德第一篇文章的标题所提出的观点:暴露组作为补充遗传学知识的工具,有助于了解慢性疾病的发生和发展。医学界从未想过慢性病可以用纯粹的遗传因素来解释。但近年来基因组研究取得的巨大进展,解释了许多疾病病因,并提供了可操作的治疗方法(特别是癌症)。暴露组的目的是通过探索健康的非遗传决定因素来补充这种方法,补充遗传学在种群层面的推理能力。

1.3. 生物医学科学视角

环境百科全书-暴露组学与社会科学:会议的承诺?-暴露组学的三个不同区域
图2. 图表显示了暴露组三个不同区域,并举例说明了这三个区域的组成部分(摘自Wild, 2012,国际流行病学杂志41,1, 24 -32页)。三个领域的翻译:1.一般外部因素:社会资本、教育水平、生活水平、压力、城乡环境、气候等。2.特殊外部因素:电离辐射、传染因子、化学污染物和环境污染物、饮食、生活方式特征(如烟草、酒精)、职业活动、医疗干预。3.内部因素:代谢、内源性激素、身体形态、身体活动、肠道微生物群、炎症、脂质过氧化、氧化应激、衰老等
[资料来源:环境百科全书,来自Wild, 2012,国际流行病学杂志41,1,p24-32]

  生物医学并不以二元对立的方式将“遗传”到“非遗传”对立起来。后者是高度复杂的,这意味需要更新“暴露”和“环境”的概念。特别是,参与暴露组的“暴露”所处的“环境”不应该被描述为仅仅是人体外部的现实(图2)。

  虽然“环境”或“暴露”的常见代表通常是指有毒物质(如石棉等),但不能将暴露简化成这些物质。除了这些特定的“外部”因素(可能有毒的物理或化学病原体),它还包括影响我们健康的社会文化、社会经济和社会环境(“外部总体”)因素(教育水平、生活水平、城市生活环境等)。器官环境还包括一个内部维度,由物理化学元素(如激素),调节激素或体内调节的机制(代谢、氧化应激等),以及人体内可发现的元素组成,如归类为“微生物群”的微生物(真菌、病毒、细菌等)(参见人类微生物群:我们健康的盟友)。

  不难看出,暴露组探索健康的社会决定因素及其与生物过程的互动,这体现其具有多学科属性。

  最重要的是要从全局角度和横向角度出发,对所有参数进行系统的研究。焦点必须放在健康的决定因素上。现在所有的决定因素都被定义为环境因素,各因素之间相互影响。我们再次认识到,采用社会科学调查法研究“暴露组”可能是个有益的尝试。从这个角度看,一个流落街头的人所患的疾病与一个生活水平高、物质(工作、住房)条件受保护的人所患的疾病是不同的。(参见环境不平等)。

环境百科全书-暴露组学与社会科学:会议的承诺?- 流行病学三角
图3. 流行病学三角形(或三合一)“媒介–宿主-环境”。
[资料来源: 环境百科全书]

流行病学中常用来解释传染病(然后是非传染性疾病)发生的“病原体–宿主–宿主–环境”三角关系(图3)得以确立。在特定的“环境”(例如职业环境)中,“病原体”(无机颗粒或生物成分)可以影响个人的健康及其特征,包括遗传特征。但是环境并不仅仅是潜在有毒“病原体”的外部领域。生物有机体本身是环境的一部分,与环境的所有组成部分相互作用。

  暴露组与迅速扩展的“-组学 ”科学和技术,包括旨在发现 “基因组 ”的“基因组学”相契合。然而,在对健康的生物决定因素的研究中,暴露占有特殊的地位:通过对基因组学的补充,它包含了所有其他 “内部”组学方法(图2)。因此,在这些科学中,暴露组学是基因组学的对话者,综合了其他分析性更强的组学方法(代谢组、蛋白质组等)的知识。因此,蛋白质组学的目的是表征体内所有蛋白质的特征,而代谢组学的目的是表征参与新陈代谢的所有小分子。

  让我们回到这个问题: 如何使暴露测量具有可操作性? 它面临的挑战是如何应对全基因组关联研究(GWAS)这一巨大工程。全基因组关联研究通过研究众多个体的大量基因变异,寻找基因突变和个体特征变异(表型)之间可能存在的联系。全基因组关联研究和暴露组学结合在一起,目的是了解为什么一个人而不是另一个人在一生中可能患上慢性病,同时考虑到在多种可能的环境中可能存在的多种基因组合

  因此,统计学和大数据(大数据[4])在基因组学和暴露组之间可能进行的对话发挥着至关重要的作用。追踪一个人的暴露情况是通过分子生物学鉴定其暴露影响所留下的特定特征(生物标记物)的一种方法。然而,仅仅确定相关生物标记物还不足以确定一个人是否接触过有毒物质,还必须通过问卷调查暴露情况。目的是确定个体遗传易感性,并找到疾病(通过生物标志物的变化确定)和环境因素(如图2所示的三个领域)之间的相关性和调节性。人类生命早期暴露组(HELIX)项目总体上就是采用这种方法,该项目对从不同国家招募的几个队列进行跟踪,在子宫和童年时期的一系列暴露进行研究,并探讨这些暴露与童年时期观察到的健康状况以及与 “分子组学特征”之间的相关性[5]

2. 通过暴露研究环境健康——艰难的学科间或跨学科研究

2.1. 回到社会流行病学

  暴露组学方法并没有首创社会科学和生物医学之间合作的理念,但原则上它提供了一个机会,通过对环境的系统认识,是这种合作更加有效。在研究细胞内部机制时,将社会学和人种学工作有机结合起来,以了解产生健康社会环境的物质条件和社会实践。这就是暴露组这一提议可能带来的启示。如果我们记得流行病学最初所引发的社会关注(从公共卫生的角度看,卫生和预防),就会发现所有这些学科之间的交叉并不新鲜[6]。社会学和(社会)流行病学之间的对话由来已久……然而,过去三十年来流行病学之间的“冲突”[7]使跨学科合作成为一个热门话题。在此期间,流行病学家们确实在至少两大主要问题上存在争议:流行病学应该处理社会问题吗?它应该解释哪种类型的因果关系和相互作用?这两个问题是联系在一起的,因为,进入社会语境的深处需远离将风险因素简化为个体特征(如性别)的推理。这种推理往往将健康的决定因素生物化[8]

  在这些激烈的争论中,以斯拉(Ezra)和默文·威尔弗雷德·萨瑟(Mervyn Wilfred Susser),以及其他一些南非公共卫生医生和流行病学家,充当了调解人,是社会流行病学或“生态流行病学”的倡导者。这些学科不排除其他层面的分析[9]。对他们来说,研究生存的社会条件和从事分子生物学研究并非相互排斥,而是相互促进的。

  然而,无论萨瑟的反思多么令人尊敬,最有可能开启跨学科合作的研究途径——比如暴露组——实际上在很大程度上仍然与社会科学及其研究工具相隔绝。在流行病学研究中(主要是盎格鲁-撒克逊人的研究),个体的某些特征甚至会被有意地以工具性的方式处理[10]。例如,“白人”或“黑人”被视为理所当然的先验因素,流行病学不断调动的种族变量就说明了这一点。生物医学研究将这些分类作为数据,并不对其提出质疑,也不试图去了解哪些社会异质性能够掩盖这种泾渭分明的对立。然而,人们认识到,人类物种个体之间的遗传多样性只有15%是基于公认的“种族”群体之间的差异,而剩余85%的人类遗传多样性是在种族群体内部发现的,即“同种族”的个体之间[11]

  虽然暴露组及其所依据的环境主义者对健康的定义呼吁社会科学和生物医学相互交融,但为什么后者会如此忽视前者呢?社会科学是否也对这失败的跨学科研究负有一定责任?这个问题没有得到一个合理的解答。

2.2. 学科间合作的建议——流行病学和环境正义运动

  首先应该回顾的是,随着“流行病学[12]的发展,一些社会科学家对这种类型的结合进行了研究。三十年来,菲尔·布朗已经证明,受特定健康问题(例如,癌症群)影响的人群遭受了当地污染的影响,而“标准”流行病学研究却没有确凿的证明。这种流行病学以小样本(社区、街道等)为研究对象,使相关人群参与实地研究工具的开发。通过与流行病学家和社会科学家合作,这些居民通过强调可能导致疾病的社会因素来分析疾病发生的原因:孩子们会在哪些空地上玩耍?(见本文封面照片)一些贫穷的居民是否回收倾倒在某个特定地点有毒的垃圾?等等。

环境百科全书-暴露组学与社会科学:会议的承诺?-拉夫运河居民的抗议运动
图4. 拉夫运河居民的抗议运动(1978年左右)
[资料来源:通过维基共享,公共领域]

  1970年代末以来,美国一直在推动“环境正义”的社会运动[13],谴责某些社区(黑人、拉丁裔、美洲土著)面临的环境风险所暴露的社会不平等现象。这些居住区同时存在健康风险(空气污染、水污染、附近的工业废物储存等)。

  在拉夫运河事件之后(拉夫运河[14],图4),在多个学科领军人物的推动下,在美国国家环境健康科学研究所(NIEHS)的制度支持和财政支持下,美国环境健康研究成为社会科学讨论最为密切的领域[15]。在这一跨学科性的代表人物中,不得不提到社会学家菲尔·布朗。他明确提出要超越暴露组,发展整合“社会暴露组”[16]概念的研究;《寂静的春天》一书的作者、生物学家雷切尔·卡森,早在1962年就谴责了杀虫剂的污染效应以及滴滴涕生产行业隐瞒其造成的影响;还有桑德拉·斯坦格雷伯,她也是一位生物学家,从事生态学研究。她通过自己患癌的经历来谴责化学污染(图5)。

环境百科全书-暴露组学与社会科学:会议的承诺?-美国环境健康研究的三位主要人物
图5. 雷切尔·卡森、桑德拉·斯坦格雷伯、菲尔·布朗:美国环境健康研究的三位领军人物
[资料来源:左图,美国鱼类和野生动物管理局[公共领域],来自维基共享;中图,贝克尔1999,来自格罗夫城,OH[CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]来自维基共享;右图,受到了菲尔·布朗的许可]

  尽管这些例子很重要,也受到了关注,但还不足以在生命科学和社会科学之间创建一个完美的、可操作的结合,障碍仍然存在。人类和社会科学对生命科学的恐惧和不信任,学科之间对量化的不同使用,或(由专门的工程机构)对环境(水、森林等)进行“技术官僚式管理”,这些都在历史上阻碍或推迟了社会学与环境科学的结合。

环境百科全书-暴露组学与社会科学:会议的承诺?-Fos-sur-Mer 的工业前线
图6. Fos-sur-Mer 的工业前沿,2015年10月
[资料来源:© Yolaine Ferrier]

  在盎格鲁-撒克逊(尤其是北美)背景之外,很少有研究能通过环境不平等的棱镜来集中质疑社会不平等[17]。Fos EPSEAL研究项目(图6)是在法国开展的一个罕见项目,该项目以“立足当地”的流行病学为基调,动员了法美团队“系统地描述这两个城市的健康状况与环境的关系,而这两个城市有着工业污染的历史和环境健康方面的争议”[18]。Fos EPSEAL的研究结果揭示了在法国建立跨学科合作的难度以及相关种群参与编制污染造成的健康危害数据的难度。该结果通过普罗旺斯-阿尔卑斯-蓝色海岸地区卫生机构(Agence régionale de santé Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur)交由法国公共卫生部[19]进行了评估,普罗旺斯-阿尔卑斯-蓝色海岸地区卫生机构(Agence régionale de santé Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur)对所实施的方法进行了有所保留的总结。

  Fos EPSEAL是一个由国家食品、环境和公共卫生安全局(PNREST Anses, Cancer ITMO AVIESAN, 2014/1/023)和法国公共卫生部支持的项目,标准流行病学技术与有利于暴露和疾病流行数据的解释之间的争论从未停止。总而言之,法国公共卫生报告的结论是,Fos EPSEAL的结果很有意义,但同时指出,产生这些结果的方法应该更加明确和严格,进而指出这些结果是“对传统流行病学方法的补充”。尽管措辞委婉,但大众流行病学的合法性显然尚未完全确立。正如2018年3月20日的一则新闻所示,讨论无论如何都没有结束。Fos EPSEAL研究小组注意到法国公共卫生报告中的评论,审查了调查方法是否符合学术标准,并强调了让当地相关种群参与研究的重要性,以便流行病学数据也可以通过生活经验来解释。

环境百科全书-暴露组学与社会科学:会议的承诺?-来自MINASARC病例对照研究中矽肺项目使用的工具的摘录
图7. 矽肺项目在MINASARC病例对照研究中使用工具得到的提取物,揭示了暴露于无机颗粒物在结节病病因学中可能扮演的角色。左图:暴露重构(职业暴露和非职业暴露),通过问卷调查了解人们在一生中暴露于无机颗粒物的情况。右图:对所有接受相同问卷调查的患者和对照组的支气管肺泡灌洗的矿物学分析:a)扫描电子显微镜;b)从支气管肺泡灌洗液中提取并沉积在过滤器上的矿物颗粒照片;c)粒子基本成分光谱。
[资料来源:© MINAPATH]

  此外,在法国和其他地方还没有发展健康社会学它能真正为一个与环境有关的健康下定义,即通过其与环境的关系(有机和社会)来理解健康的概念[20]。其他研究项目已经开始朝这个方向努力,在普通人群中调动社会科学和社会人口调查方法,以及实验科学(包括矿物学)、流行病学和医学(肺脏学、内科、放射学等)领域的问题和工具(图7:矽肺项目)。

  总的来说,尽管有研究试图弥合学科方法之间的差距,但这种差距依然存在:

  • 一方面,对暴露概念的研究主要是由专门从事生命科学的团队进行的。他们可以通过问卷调查的方式进行调查,但仅作为一种调查工具,其最终目的是突出暴露在人体中的分子特征。
  • 另一方面,以社会科学为基础的研究方法虽然不一定涉及暴露的概念,但可以对人们在整个生命过程中接触有毒物质的社会条件进行研究。在这里,通过问卷调查和观察进行的调查是核心,而这种方法的整合一般情况下不涉及分子生物学。

2.3. 打破对原因不明的疾病进行非社会性研究的僵局

  关于暴露组,人们经常会提到一种新的“范式”, 2016年关于《健康法》(Health Act)的议会辩论就说明了这一点。这表明,暴露组催化了围绕它的研究人员群体。此外还催化了使用这一概念的决策者群体。但是,组学研究人员向我们解释道,“测量”暴露是困难的,并没有理想的实用设备使暴露组发挥作用。

  要在这一意义上提出建议,我们必须牢记,庞大的技术手段并不能保证未解的疾病之谜都能得到解决。因此,在全球疾病负担[21](GBD)这一史无前例的统计项目所使用的社会人口统计学变量(例如社会专业类别、年龄、性别),只能解释许多慢性病(包括慢性呼吸系统疾病)的伤残调整预期寿命(“DALYs”)中的很小一部分。因此,尽管该项目估计全球近四分之一的发病率、死亡率和残疾的[22]是由环境因素造成的,但是疾病的社会特征几乎是一个盲点。换句话说,虽然“环境”在统计学上是健康状况的一个重要解释因素,但这一结果并没有转化为对受特定慢性病影响人群的社会特征进行描述。就好像被描述为“环境”的东西仍是一个神秘的非社会的黑匣子。

  北美的知识和哲学背景是环境主义,这无疑拉近了“社会科学家”和“生物医学科学家”之间的距离。但他们中的大多数人仍然对与社会科学合作的可能性持怀疑态度,或者根本漠不关心。反之亦然! 然而,在南非这样的国家,传染病(艾滋病毒、结核病)的发病率很高,不明病因的疾病(例如自身免疫性疾病)的发病率也越来越高,这种情况对科学分析来说是一个真正的挑战。要应对这一挑战,每个相关学科都必须向同行迈出一步,真正实现学科间的合作和融合。从这个角度说,暴露组研究是充满希望的。

 


参考资料及说明

封面照片:[资料来源: Pixabay的免版税图片]

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To cite this article: CAVALIN Catherine (March 13, 2024), 暴露组与社会科学——会议的承诺?, Encyclopedia of the Environment, Accessed September 18, 2024 [online ISSN 2555-0950] url : https://www.encyclopedie-environnement.org/zh/societe-zh/exposome-social-sciences-promise-of-meeting/.

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