The special issue "Human Biomonitoring 2016", Volume 220/2 Part A of the journal International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health is based on the contributions made to the 2nd International Human Biomonitoring Conference in 2016 in Berlin, whose slogan was "Science and policy for a healthy future“. The conference was co-hosted by the German Environment Agency and the Federal Ministry for Environment.

In addition to findings in major global human biomonitoring (HBM) programmes, other articles focus on the development of innovative HBM method, the application of HBM as an instrument of health risk assessment, an on European and international harmonisation of HBM methods and data. The HBM conference report also underlines the significance of HBM as a key information and control instrument in health-related environmental protection.

The following articles are representative:

• An overview of human biomonitoring of environmental chemicals in the Canadian Health Measures Survey: 2007-2019
• Human biomonitoring as a tool to support chemicals regulation in the European Union
• New specific and sensitive biomonitoring methods for chemicals of emerging health relevance
• The exposome in practice: Design of the EXPOsOMICS project
• New HBM values for emerging substances, inventory of reference and HBM values in force and working principles of the German Human Biomonitoring Commission
• Cumulative effects of antiandrogenic chemical mixtures and their relevance to human health risk assessment

All 34 articles are available open access for one year.