The research on perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) in different research areas from the 1950s to the present.

Sammanfattning: Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are found globally in the environment, in humans and in wildlife and it is still not sure how these substances affect humans and animals. This study was performed as a systematic review to examine when these substances first attracted attention in different research areas. Also, to examine when the first publication was published and how the research on PFASs is distributed over time. A total of 2722 publications, as well as their titles and abstracts, were analyzed and used as data. The results show that the most common research area on PFASs was the research about chemical properties. Other large research areas were measurements in the environment and research about PFASs in humans. The first publication found in this study was published 65 years ago in 1952 and it took 39 years before something else than publications within chemical properties was published. In 1991, publications about rodents and mammals appeared. This study shows an increase of published items per year since 1950s and the publications published in 2010 and after, accounted for 64 % of all publications. The highest number of publications per year was published in 2014 however, the number of publications per year decreased in the following years. Further attention should be given to how these substances affect humans and wildlife, removal strategies and review measured concentrations in wildlife. To investigate how PFASs affects humans and wildlife, research should be conducted interdisciplinary. There are several different research areas and different specialties in the same field of science that must be combined to understand and get a comprehensive picture of the situation regarding foreign substances in the environment, such as PFASs. This study shows an overview of the historical research on PFASs and how potential future environmental pollutants should be handled.