IPChem Standards

EDIAQI project data will be made accessible through IPCHEM which is the Information Platform for Chemical Monitoring and reference access point for locating and retrieving chemical occurrence data across various media (e.g. environment, human, food/feed, indoor air and products) in the European Union.

IPCHEM is structured into four modules, according to the chemical monitoring data categorisation: Environmental monitoring, Human Bio-Monitoring, Food and Feed, Products and Indoor Air. The platform is being operated by the European Commission Services and the European Union Agencies.

Purpose

In accordance with the main objective of EDIAQI project the IPCHEM platform addresses one of the major gaps in our knowledge base for chemical policies, which is the lack of information on exposure to chemicals and their burden in the human body and the environment. Further purposes of IPCHEM are the discovery of a chemical monitoring initiative for a specific substance and/or media, the retrieval of information on the conditions of data use related to a specific data collection, and the access to and documentation on the sampling and analytical methods used in the specific monitoring initiative. Therefore, IPCHEM supports a coordinated approach for collecting, storing, accessing, and evaluating data related to occurrence of chemicals and chemical mixtures. "This would help identify links between exposure and epidemiological data in order to explore potential biological effects and lead to improved health outcomes” as it is stated in the EC Communication “The combination effects of chemicals – Chemical mixtures”.[1]

Contributors

Via IPCHEM search engine chemicals can be searched. Contributors to IPCHEM are EU Member States Competent Authorities, Universities and Research Institutions, International non-governmental organisations, public and private institution collecting chemical monitoring data, European Commission Services and European Executive and Decentralised Agencies. EDIAQI partners are contributing to IPCHEM by sharing the data via the three required IPCHEM forms on a regular basis once a year.

Data Availability

By default, the chemical monitoring data retrievable through the IPCHEM platform is made available to all user groups under the conditions of Free, Full, Open and Timely access according to the European strategy for data and the Open Data Directive. The data will be provided with all the necessary attributes to facilitate their interpretation and shall be accompanied by the metadata to make them usable and understandable by the user or subject to specific conditions deriving from those exceptions. All data are described with required metadata based on international, standardized templates (e.g., Dublin Core) or individual templates. Moreover, data are indexed and discoverable through metadata ElasticSearch.

References

1. IPCHEM - Information Platform for Chemical Monitoring Quick reference guide for end-users