OPINION: The exposome and its role in the accounting for environmental health and justice

Environmental justice in simple terms is: justice for the home. This goes for all levels of the home; from the cosmos, to the Earth, to our house, all the way down to our own bodies. The holy scriptures refer to the body as a home and temple of the spirit. Environmental justice is working for all levels of home to be healthy and whole. Well, what is an ‘exposome’? And how might exposomes help us understand the health and wholeness of our homes?

The exposome is the total account of a person’s environmental exposures from birth to death. These environmental exposures can be chemical, physical or biological. They show up as contaminated air, land or water or through chemicals in products we use or consume like food, cosmetics and cleaning solutions. It’s important to note there can also be beneficial exposures such as herbs, medicines or other cultural consumables. These exposures do more than leave an imprint, they can combine, synergize and set off a whole series of biological, immunological and cellular responses, and in some cases, that can be healing or it can be disease response — depending on the type of exposure.

A simple equation for health is: genetics x environmental exposures = health. For the last several decades biomedical research has largely focused on decoding the first part of the equation; genes. The belief was that decoding the genome would provide the critical information needed to prevent disease and promote health. Which in some respects it has, but more importantly, the gene research is solidifying a long-held truth of the environmental justice movement. Our environments are the biggest determinant of our health outcomes. The latest gene research is showing now that genetic mutations only account for around 10% of diseases like Parkinson’s. The remaining 90% is believed to be largely due to environmental exposures, which can be measured through our exposome.

The exposome is an academic way of articulating what Indigenous and social movements have been articulating for a long time. Which is that we are our environment. It’s critical that exposome research picks up — which it rapidly is.

And it’s critical that it’s grounded in ethical and community-based research practices. That communities are in control of their own data and the processes to collect that data. Furthermore, how can exposome research help us further understand the extent to which systematic structural systems of inequity have played a role in health and disease outcomes? This is seen in the legacy of overburdened, disproportionately impacted and disinvested communities impacted by the legacy of environmental racism and ecocide. The exposome is harder to track than the genome because it is ever evolving and there is no single method to measure all factors.

I close with the First Principle of the Environmental Justice Principles: environmental justice affirms the sacredness of Mother Earth, ecological unity and the interdependence of all species, and the right to be free from ecological destruction.

We are forever interconnected, and it’s a sacred connection.