Plastic Health Map

The Plastic Health Map is an open-access, interactive systematic evidence database collating human health research on a wide range of plastic chemicals from several different chemical classes, published between 1960 and 2022.

The database includes interactive plots and heatmaps showing the number of articles published each year by plastic chemical class, individual chemical, category of health outcome and the geographical distribution of the studies.

The plots and heatmaps can be filtered by plastic chemical, health outcome category, year of publication, study design, population (including country), age group and general/special exposure risk. Article references can be viewed and downloaded based on the filters selected.

The journal article published in Environment International provides background information, details on our study methodology, a comprehensive overview of the database, as well as detailed discussion of the results identified by the study. Additional supplementary data is downloadable directly from the journal’s website. Our project and relevant updates can also be found on our OSF page.

It is estimated that there are more than 10,500 chemicals used in plastic production and only a fraction of these have been studied for human exposure and health outcomes. We conducted a targeted search for 1,557 chemicals categorised as polymers, bisphenols, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and plastic additives functioning as plasticisers and/or flame retardants. The Plastic Health Map houses the entire searchable database of included chemicals, indexing the multiple synonyms and commonly used terminology describing these chemicals.

First, the Map is best viewed on a full computer screen with the browser window “maximised”, rather than on a mobile device. Second, the “squashed” issue is related to the web-browser settings and can be fixed using the zoom function under “settings”. Try reducing the zoom gradually until the figures present properly without overlap/squashing of text and images (80-90 per cent may be suitable when using a large monitor; 67 per cent on a small laptop).

Despite including micro- and nanoplastics in our search strategy, just one study screened during this project measured microplastics in human tissues and analysed relationships with health outcomes. As it was the only study measuring the plastic exposure in faeces, this study is not represented in the Plastic Health Map but is described in our paper. We are aware that further studies on particles may have been published since January 2022, and these will be represented in future updates.

Please cite our Environment International article and the Minderoo website when referencing the Plastic Health Map.

The scope of the chemicals in the Plastic Health Map is limited to polymers, plasticisers, flame retardants, bisphenols and PFAS, although we recognise that humans are potentially exposed to many other plastic chemicals. There is potential for the database to include others. Due to time and resource limitations, only articles published/available in the English language are included in the database.

While we indicate whether studies involved male/female or mixed sex populations, for mixed populations we do not provide details on any sub-analyses that may have been conducted on male/female groups.

The Map does not display the correlations found/not found between plastic exposures and health outcome measures. We followed the typical systematic evidence map framework to demonstrate the scope of research conducted to date, without assessing the quality of studies, which would be necessary to report on correlations.