Occurrence of pharmaceutically active compounds in groundwater and their effects to the human health

Abstract Groundwater contamination by pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs) has been considered a public health concern worldwide. Alongside the potential toxicological risk of these organic substances, many countries still rely on groundwater for drinking water supply. Thus, this study identified a priority list of seven licit PhACs, comprising acetaminophen (ACT), tramadol (TRA), carbamazepine (CBZ), erythromycin (ERY), sulfamethoxazole (SMX), metformin (MET), and oxazepam (OXZ). Consumption, concentration, and human toxicity in silico results were collected from open access databases. These three indicators were analyzed separately and grouped through a global risk index (GRI). The consumption index (data from the USA and Brazil) indicated that ACT, TRA, and MET are the most consumed. Monitoring samples from the USA and Europe (n=816) indicated that ERY and ACT stand out as the higher occurrence index considering both regions; but the ranking for each region showed considerable differences. When assessing human health risk, a high index was attributed to ERY, ACT, and MET. Thus, the GRI results indicated that future studies must pay attention to ACT as it has high index values for all three indicators. In addition, human toxicity of CBZ, MET, OXZ, SMX, and TRA indicated the need to be attentive to their effects on human health.