A roadmap for a 21st century human biomonitoring toolbox

Current challenges in data comparability, integration, and management, hinder effective utilization of the large amount of data generated in environment and health studies. The European chapter of the International Society of Exposure Science (ISES Europe) Human Biomonitoring (HBM) Working Group is developing a global preregistration platform “FAIR Environment and Health Registry (FAIREHR)” to address these challenges. The focus is initially on the HBM domain, towards the implementation of FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) principles throughout the data lifecycle. Preregistration of HBM studies in a peer review-based registry like FAIREHR would stimulate communication and interaction among HBM communities leading to improved HBM study designs as well as generating comparable results worldwide. Using common standards and ontologies will make data better interoperable and functional for machine discovery. FAIREHR will also provide information on data licenses and request procedures necessary to access datasets of interest. Overall, the FAIREHR platform gathers many stakeholders (scientists, regulators, policy makers, life science companies, publishers, and funding bodies) interested in tracking and identifying planned, ongoing, and completed studies. FAIREHR is expected to benefit research, innovation and environment and public health policies by providing FAIR data that can be readily utilized for protecting human health.