The human health programme of the first phase of AMAP was planned at an international meeting held in Nuuk, Greenland, October 1992. As the most vulnerable period to adverse effects of contaminants is during fetal development, it was decided to concentrate on analyses of umbilical cord blood and maternal blood. The programme was designed as a core programme in which 150 sample pairs should be collected in each of the 8 arctic countries and analyzed for persistant organic pollutants (POPs) and heavy metals (mercury, lead and cadmium). As some essential elements such as copper, zinc and selenium interfere with heavy metal toxicity these elements should also be analyzed. Additional analyses such as nickel and arsenic in urine, mercury in hair, and POPs in breast milk could be incorporated regionally according to specific local conditions. Radionucleides were not a major focus in the human programme as this issue was be dealt with by AMAP's radiation group. Implementation of the programme was a problem in most of the countries due to lack of funding. However, an offer from Canada to analyze all contaminants in 50 samples from each country enabled the first comparative circumpolar study of human exposure to contaminants to be completed. The study confirmed that in general the most important source of exposure to both POPs and mercury is food of marine origin and that Greenlanders and Inuit from the Canadian Arctic, due to their traditional lifestyle, are among the most highly exposed populations in the Arctic. This is not a result of local pollution in Greenland and Canada, but is due to long range transport of persistent contaminants through the atmosphere and their biomagnification in the marine food chain. For these reasons the most important recommendation of the first AMAP assessment is that priority should be given to the expeditious completion of negotiations to establish protocols for the control of POPs and heavy metals under the Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution.