Great Lakes (GL) sport fish consumption is a potential human exposure route for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dichlorodiphenyl dichloroethene (DDE).

Because of fish tissue contamination, frequent consumers of Great Lakes sport caught fish (GLSCF) may be at risk for PCB and DDE accumulation.

To examine this problem, the Health Departments of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan formed a health assessment consortium.

Participants were contacted by telephone to complete a detailed demographic and fish consumption survey.

Frequent and infrequent GLSCF consumers were identified, and a participant subset was then asked to donate blood for PCB and DDE analysis.

Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was done to study exposure group mean differences, while correlation and regression analyses were performed to examine relationships between demographic characteristics, GLSCF consumption, PCB, and DDE body burdens.

A total of 4206 individuals participated in the study.

Of these, 2542 were habitual GLSCF consumers (mean greater than 35 meals/year males ; greater than 27 meals/year females), while 1664 did not eat GLSCF.

A subset of 538 participants donated blood and included 439 frequent and 99 infrequent GLSCF consumers.

PCB levels were significantly higher in the group of GLSCF consumers (geometric mean : 4.8 ppb males, 2.1 ppb females) when compared to their referents (geometric mean : 1.5 ppb males, 0. (...)