It might have been an overstatement that epidemiologists are more suitable or able than toxicologists to perform human exposure assessment (HEA). The discussions presented in the last
few slides suggest that a knowledge of the chemical's pharamcokinetics, that usually acquired by toxicologists, is actually a prerequisite for the conduct of a human biomonitoring study. Nonetheless, there is some truth to the claim that epidemiologists might indeed have a superior role in HEA.

For one thing, epidemiologists in general are more quantitatively oriented and trained. Epidemiologists and biostatisticians are often seen to work together very closely. In fact, some public health schools have even grouped biostatistics and epidemiology into one department. Doctoral students in environmental epidemiology are required or structured to take additional biostatistics courses, enough to be comparable to those required of a biostatistics student in a masters degree program. Epidemiologists and epidemiology students deal with human subjects more often than their toxicology counterparts do. Thirdly, it is often necessary for environmental and occupational epidemiologists to have a good handle on the assessment of human exposure to environmental contaminants first, before they can proceed with much of their investigations. This HEA requirement may also be applicable to some toxicologists specializing in air pollution or the like, but by definition they would then be more properly referred to as epidemiologists.