Abstract
<jats:p>Environmental pollutants are increasingly associated with adverse cardiovascular effects, posing serious public health concerns. We conducted a systematic mapping review to identify, organize, and make accessible the existing toxicological evidence on pollutant induced cardiotoxicity (PICT). An interactive systematic evidence map was developed to support research prioritization, risk assessment, and policy development.</jats:p> <jats:p>Following our previously published protocol, peer-reviewed studies were included if they reported cardiovascular outcomes resulting from pollutant exposure in animal or in vitro models. Data were extracted on study design, exposure-outcome relationships, and risk of bias (RoB) was assessed for all included studies.</jats:p> <jats:p> Out of 9,317 screened studies, 400 were included. Findings show substantial evidence of cardiotoxic effects from exposure to heavy metals, air pollutants, insecticides, PFAS, and related substances. Animal studies dominate the literature, commonly reporting cardiomyopathy, hypertrophy, fibrosis, and conduction abnormalities at environmentally relevant exposures. In vitro models primarily offer shared mechanistic insights, especially related to oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction. RoB varied across studies, with common limitations in exposure characterization and endpoint validation, while in vivo and in vitro results showed good correlation. To improve data accessibility and reusability, we created an open-access interactive evidence map ( <jats:ext-link xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" ext-link-type="uri" xlink:href="https://cardiotoxdb.org/">https://cardiotoxdb.org/</jats:ext-link> ), allowing users to filter by pollutant class, study type, species or cell type and cardiac outcome. </jats:p> <jats:p>This review and the systematic evidence map offer a structured and transparent overview of toxicological data on PICT, enabling stakeholders to explore the evidence base, identify gaps, and prioritize pollutants for further evaluation.</jats:p>