OUR SUSTAINABLE FUTURE: SHELTER

Sustainability Spotlight: Faculty

CHEMICAL EXPOSURES GET PERSONAL

Melissa Smarr, Assistant Professor of Environmental Health

Shampoos, body washes, and other personal products may promise great shine and fragrance but sometimes deliver something else: harmful chemicals. Melissa Smarr, assistant professor of environmental health in the Rollins School of Public Health, researches how environmental exposures to chemicals in personal products and other sources might affect reproductive, prenatal, fetal, and children’s health.  

“Some of these chemicals are short-lived, meaning that the body usually rapidly metabolizes them,” Smarr says. “Because of that, for a long time, they were overlooked as potential hazards, until people started realizing these are the chemicals we’re exposed to more frequently.”  

Chemical concentrations in the urine or blood have traditionally been used as the testing standard. But Smarr discovered significantly higher concentrations of phthalate metabolites in the seminal plasma, adversely affecting sperm motility, mobility, and shape and, therefore, reproductive success. Through her work with the HERCULES Exposome Research Center, she’s researching novel ways to assess vaginal exposure to chemicals in relation to various reproductive outcomes.

Her research into persistent chemicals, such as PBDEs used as a flame retardant, found that women exposed to higher levels of PBDEs had a significantly increased risk of developing gestational diabetes. She also found that elevated concentrations of certain PBDE formulations, called lower-brominated PBDEs, seemed associated with an increased risk of pregnancy loss.

“So much focus is on air, water, and soil pollution,” Smarr says. “By paying more attention to exposure to these chemicals in consumer products, we can promote more healthy, viable, and equitable communities.” 

—Kristin Baird Rattini