Anthroposomics: integrating anthropological methods into exposome research

TL;DR

This paper introduces anthroposomics, a new approach that combines anthropology with exposome research to better understand how people interact with their environments and manage health risks.

Contribution

The paper introduces the novel concept of the anthroposome and proposes ethnographic methods to integrate human agency into exposome research.

Findings

The anthroposome captures how individuals and communities manage environmental exposures through daily practices.

Ethnographic methods reveal context-specific risk management strategies overlooked by conventional exposure research.

Anthroposomics repositions populations as active agents in shaping their exposure landscapes.

Abstract

Exposome research seeks to understand how cumulative environmental exposures across the life course shape health outcomes. Most studies however, adopt a unidirectional, top-down model, conceptualizing individuals as passive recipients of exposure, which overlooks the social, cultural, and behavioral dynamics through which people engage with their environments and thus underestimates the human agency of those exposed in mitigating exposures.

To address this gap, we introduce the concept of the anthroposome: the full range of micro-ecological practices through which individuals and communities sense, interpret, avoid, and manage environmental exposures in daily life. Drawing on anthropological theory and focusing on ethnographic methods, we outline five discovery-based approaches for integrating lived experience and social complexity into exposome science. These methods highlight how everyday practices influence exposure pathways and reveal context-specific risk management strategies conventional exposure researchers may miss. Capturing bidirectional human–environment interactions, anthroposomics repositions populations suffering from exposure as active agents who participate in shaping their exposure landscapes.

Anthroposomics expands the exposome paradigm by integrating ethnographic methods into exposome research, enhancing the paradigm's relevance, effectiveness, and equity. Anthroposomics offers a foundation for preventive, community-responsive, justice-oriented environmental health interventions and policy.

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