Abstract: Acrylamide (AM) has caused widespread concern because it is a potential environmental pollutant and has toxicity to living organisms. AM was used widely in industrial production and existed in some foods so it accessed to human being and other organisms inevitably. In this paper, advances in the research on the detection methods and health hazard of AM were summarized. High performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) was the most commonly used method, and some new technologies were also gradually applied. In terms of health hazard, AM caused neurotoxicity, reproductive toxicity, genotoxicity and potential carcinogenicity to animals in laboratory. The toxicity mechanism includes direct neuron damage, oxidative damage caused by accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), gene locus mutation, and admixture with DNA. The concentration of AM in the environment should be tracked and monitored and its toxic effect on organisms should be studied thoroughly and comprehensively. The supervision and governance of AM discharge would be strengthened to protect the ecological environment and human health, and furthermore a rapid biological testing system to assess the risk of AM in water, especially in marine environment, would be established.