Environmental Pollution (2026). DOI: 10.1016/j.envpol.2025.127549"> Credit: Environmental Pollution (2026). DOI: 10.1016/j.envpol.2025.127549

Take a brief walk outside and you're likely to encounter a wide range of things that could influence your health—the sunlight beaming on your face, a plume of exhaust, or even noise from a car driving by. Each exposure carries with it the possibility of affecting your physical well-being.

Tracking and understanding this vast galaxy of exposures and the factors that influence them—what you eat, how you eat it, where you live, how you commute to work—could deliver a much richer understanding of personal health. In turn, that could lead to more informed choices about the risks people accept as they navigate the world. That is the core charge of "exposomics."

"The exposome is the totality of exposures you'll encounter in your lifetime, from your prenatal experience to the end of your life," said toxicologist Alison Clark at Oregon State University (OSU).…