Exposure Pathway

If an exposure pathway is complete, then all 5 parts of the pathway are present and an exposure is occurring or has occurred in the past. The exposure pathway evaluation also looks to make sure the exposure pathway will not be complete in the future even if no one is exposed now. Sometimes only one type of exposure pathway is complete. For example, people may use bottled water for drinking but may be using contaminated water to shower. Since the chemicals may move from the water into the air, people may be breathing in chemicals—which is a completed inhalation exposure pathway. Clean-up efforts remove one or more exposure pathway parts to make the exposure pathway incomplete.