Schema Enum Description
Route of exposure — the portal by which an agent reaches the organism. Standard toxicological/regulatory axis, used by ATSDR toxicological profiles, EPA risk assessment and the GHS alike, and post-composed into ECTO exposure terms ("exposure to arsenic in water via ingestion"). The route is a property of the exposure event, so one agent commonly has several — the slot is multivalued. Route matters mechanistically: the same agent produces different disease by different routes (inhaled versus ingested hexavalent chromium), which is why this is worth recording separately rather than leaving implicit in the ECTO label.