Source: The post Human exposomics approach can improve public health has been created, based on the article “Exposomics for better environmental health” published in “The Hindu” on 5 June 2025. Human exposomics approach can improve public health.
UPSC Syllabus Topic: GS Paper2-governance-Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health. AND GS Paper3- Environment
Context: World Environment Day 2025 focuses on ending plastic pollution. This brings attention to invisible hazards like microplastics, which cannot be detected with current technologies. India, bearing 25% of the global environmental disease burden, must adopt integrated, science-based approaches like exposomics to reduce health risks and healthcare costs.
The Growing Environmental Disease Burden
- India’s Alarming Health Impact: India faces nearly three million deaths and over 100 million DALYs from occupational and environmental health (OEH) risks. Air pollution and solid fuel use are leading contributors.
- Global Estimates from GBD 2021: The Global Burden of Disease study in 2021 attributed 18.9% of global deaths and 14.4% of DALYs to OEH risks. PM2.5 caused 4.7 million deaths, and household air pollution led to 3.1 million.
- Link to Chronic Diseases: In India, OEH risks are responsible for more than 50% of non-communicable disease burdens such as heart disease, stroke, asthma, COPD, diabetes, and chronic kidney disease.
- Severe Effects on Children: Lead exposure in children under five results in high IQ loss. India alone accounts for 154 million IQ points lost—20% of the global estimate.
Gaps in Current Risk Assessments
- Limited Range of Factors: Current GBD assessments include only around 11 environmental risks due to a lack of human exposure data. Missing categories include microplastics, chemical mixtures, and noise pollution.
- Overlooked Interactions: Environmental risks interact with metabolic, behavioral, genetic, and social factors in complex ways. Single-risk estimates miss these synergies.
- Amplified Risks from Climate Change: Climate change worsens heat, air pollution, storms, floods, and vector-borne diseases. It also impacts food systems and mental health, especially in underserved populations.
- Inadequate Models for Policy: Because many risks and their interactions are unaccounted for, current disease burden estimates are conservative and not useful for prioritizing scalable prevention strategies.
Exposomics: A Holistic Solution
- Beyond Genetics: Genetics alone explains less than half the risk for common diseases. Genome mapping led to the idea of the exposome, which tracks all life-long exposures affecting health.
- What the Exposome Captures: The exposome includes exposures from chemical, biological, physical, and psycho-social environments. It studies how these interact with diet, lifestyle, and biology to influence disease.
- Technologies Enabling Exposomics: It uses wearable sensors, untargeted biomonitoring, organs-on-chips, and AI for exposure-wide association studies (EWAS) to match genome-wide models.
- Urgent Need for Data Infrastructure: For exposomics to work, interoperable and accessible data ecosystems are essential. Harmonised repositories must support long-term collaboration.
India’s Opportunity for Integration
- Time to Leap Ahead: Though challenging, India can adopt exposomics through its strength in digital and data-driven public health. It enables early disease prediction and low-cost care.
- Embedding Environmental Health: By aligning environmental and health systems, India can reduce chronic disease and improve preventive care efficiency.
- Towards a Healthier Future: India must engage with the global exposome movement. Future Environment Days may celebrate the exposome as the key to achieving health equity and prevention.
Question for practice:
Examine how the concept of the human exposome can help address the limitations of current environmental health risk assessments in India.
