The Northern Contaminants Program (NCP) was established in 1991 in response to concerns about human exposure to elevated levels of contaminants in fish and wildlife species that are important to the traditional diets of northern Aboriginal peoples. Early studies indicated that there was a wide spectrum of substances: persistent organic pollutants, heavy metals, and radionuclides, many of which had no Arctic or Canadian sources, but which were, nevertheless, reaching unexpectedly high levels in the Arctic ecosystem. Under the first phase of the NCP (NCP-I), research was focussed on gathering the data required to determine the levels, geographic extent, and source of contaminants in the northern atmosphere, environment and its people, and the probable duration of the problem. Results generated through NCP-I were synthesized and published in 1997 in the first Canadian Arctic Contaminants Assessment Report (CACAR-I). In 1998, the NCP began its second phase (NCP-II), which will continue until March 2003. NCP-II focussed upon questions about the impacts and risks to human health that may result from current levels of contamination in key Arctic food species as well as determining the temporal trends of contaminants of concern in key indicator Arctic species and air. It addressed these issues under a number of subprograms: human health; monitoring the health of Arctic peoples and ecosystems and the effectiveness of international controls; education and communications; and international policy.The priority areas in the human health subprogram during NCP-II included: exposure assessment, toxicology, epidemiology, and risk and benefit characterization. The key objectives of this, the human health technical report in the CACAR-II series, are to summarize the knowledge produced since the first CACAR on human exposure to and possible health effects of current levels of environmental contaminants in the Canadian Arctic, and to identify the data and knowledge gaps that need to be filled by future human health research and monitoring. The CACAR-II series consists of a Highlights report and four technical reports: human health, biological environment, physical environment and knowledge in action.