The German Environmental Survey (GerES) is a representative population study carried out in order to determine the exposure to pollutants of the general population in Germany. The study has been conducted by the Federal Environment Agency since the mid-1980s. GerES IV is the first environmental survey to determine, on a representative basis, the body burden of pollutants in children in Germany and the exposure to pollutants in their homes. It is a module of the German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents (German  acronym: KiGGS) and was carried out in close cooperation with the Robert Koch Institute (RKI).In a randomly selected sub-sample of the KiGGS population consisting of 1 790 children aged   to 14 years and living in 150 different sampling locations, also the body burden of environmental pollutants was examined.