Concerns over environmental endocrine disrupting chemicals and protection for women and children's health

Environmental chemicals are omnipresent in our daily life. Among them, endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are exogenous chemicals that interfere with hormone action, thereby increasing the risk of adverse health outcomes. As it has already been proved by numerous laboratory and epidemiology studies, EDCs have a profound and life-long impact on human reproduction, especially for those at critical and sensitive developmental stages such as fetuses, infants, children, and women in reproductive age. Despite we have made progress in acknowledging the adverse effects, it is still at the beginning stage to comprehensively evaluate the reproductive risks of EDCs. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of future research directions and some recommendations.