Assessing environmental toxins by human population effects

Abstract

The impact of toxins on the health of human populations can only be accurately assessed by epidemiologic methods. The investigation of toxin–disease associations in human populations and the accurate interpretation of data are often very difficult because of the existence of multiple confounding variables and the unrepresentativeness of sample or study populations.Factors influencing the deduction of cause and effect relationship rather than simple association are discussed, as is the need for continued development of epidemiological surveillance techniques.