Information sources risk assessment

For excellent summaries of general exposure and health effects data for 243 substances, see the California Air Resources Board report (1997b). Each summary describes the physical properties, sources, and concentrations both outdoors and indoors, atmospheric persistence, health effects, and other risk assessment information. 

Sources http //www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/. EPA Toxic Profiles. http //www.epa.gov/iris/subst/. IRIS (EPA Integrated Risk Information System). http //www.eDa.gov/ttn/atw/hlthef/. EPA Technology Transfer Network Air Toxics Website. http //risk.Isd.ornl.gov/cgi.bin/tox/. RAIS (EPA Risk Assessment Information System). 

To chanicterize potential disasters by tjpe and extent, a survey of hazards or foreseeable tlireats in die community must be performed and evaluated. Widiout such information, an appropriate plan cannot be developed. An inventory of the community protection assets, liazard sources, and risks must be done before die actual plan is written. The procedures followed here is similar to diat provided in Part IV of this book - Hazard Risk Assessment. 

The potential sources of hazards should be listed for risk assessment. SARA requires certain industries to provide information to the planning committee. Information about snuill as well as large industries is necessary to perinit the committee to evaluate tlie significant risks. Tlie information required by SARA (some of which was provided in Cliapter 2) includes ... 

Thus, tlie focus of tliis subsection is on qualitative/semiquantitative approaches tliat can yield useful information to decision-makers for a limited resource investment. There are several categories of uncertainties associated with site risk assessments. One is tlie initial selection of substances used to characterize exposures and risk on tlie basis of the sampling data and available toxicity information. Oilier sources of uncertainty are inlierent in tlie toxicity values for each substance used to characterize risk. Additional micertainties are inlierent in tlie exposure assessment for individual substances and individual exposures. These uncertainties are usually driven by uncertainty in tlie chemical monitoring data and tlie models used to estimate exposure concentrations in tlie absence of monitoring data, but can also be driven by population intake parameters. As described earlier, additional micertainties are incorporated in tlie risk assessment when exposures to several substances across multiple patliways are suimned. 

FIGURE 7.1.2 Four parts of risk assessment and required information. Source Renwick, A.G. et al., Food Chem. Toxicol., 41, 1211, 2003. With permission.)... 

Professor Martel s book addresses specifically some of the more technical eispects of the risk assessment process, mainly in the areas of hazard identification, and of the consequence/effect analysis elements, of the overall analysis whilst where appropriate setting these aspects in the wider context. The book brings together a substantial corpus of information, drawn from a number of sources, about the toxic, flammable and explosive properties and effect (ie harm) characteristics of a wide range of chemical substances likely to be found in industry eind in the laboratory, and also addresses a spectrum of dangerous reactions of, or between, such substances which may be encountered. This approach follows the classical methodology and procedures of hazard identification, analysing material properties eind... 

In the second part, specific case studies in which the aforementioned models have been applied are presented. The results of such application as well as their reliability are discussed. Toxicological studies in Italy, risk assessment of electronic waste in China, or disposal of bearing lamps in India are some examples of selected scenarios.We hope that the scientific community finds in this book a source of information and inspiration to continue the research on chemical additives contained in products around the world. 

Frequently, the existence and source of such information is nnknown thns the data are not examined. Even when the existence and sonrces of information are known, decisions must be made in order to make an informed, and often quick decision on the next steps, even if later, one decides not to nse it for a particular application. Knowing about the relevant data gives investigators and analysts the ability to assess the data based on qnality assnrance criteria. This is especially true for users near the end of long decision processes, such as site cleanup, ecological risk assessments, and natural resource damage assessments. 

In some instances, the specific data on a given chemical or pollutant source will replace conservative defanlt options used in earlier assignments. The report includes two authored appendices that address issues related to the use of default options and their replacement by specific scientific information. One appendix (by Finkel) advocates a principle of plausible conservatism for choosing and altering default options and in making cancer risk estimates. The second appendix (by McClellan and North) advocates the full use of scientific information in the risk assessment process. 

Risk assessment starts with risk identification, a systematic use of available information to identify hazards (i.e., events or other conditions that have the potential to cause harm). Information can be from a variety of sources including stakeholders, historical data, information from the literature, and mathematical or scientific analyses. Risk analysis is then conducted to estimate the degree of risk associated with the identified hazards. This is estimated based on the likelihood of occurrence and resultant severity of harm. In some risk management tools, the ability to detect the hazard may also be considered. If the hazard is readily detectable, this may be considered a factor in the overall risk assessment. Risk evaluation determines if the risk is acceptable based on specified criteria. In a quality system environment, criteria would include impact on the overall performance of the quality system and the quality attributes of the finished product. The value of the risk assessment depends on how robust the data used in the assessment process is judged to be. The risk assessment process should take into account assumptions and reasonable sources of uncertainty. Risk assessment activities should be documented. 

KEMI s list of toxics is one of the most important sources of information for retailers in deciding on their purchases. Recent versions of the KEMI list carry an explanatory section that encourages the user to make some sort of risk assessment of the listed substances rather than automatically deciding against a product because it contains one or more of the listed chemicals. However, according to information from the Swedish Chemicals Manufacturers Association, retailers purchasing departments... 

After risks have been estimated, available information must be integrated and interpreted to form conclusions about risks to the assessment endpoints. Risk descriptions include an evaluation of the lines of evidence supporting or refuting the risk estimate(s) and an interpretation of the adverse effects on the assessment end point. Confidence in the conclusions of a risk assessment may be increased by using several lines of evidence to interpret and compare risk estimates. These lines of evidence may be derived from different sources or by different techniques relevant to adverse effects on the assessment end points, such as quotient estimates, modeling results, field experiments,... 

In summary, the PFOA risk assessment is a good example of biomonitoring-led risk assessment. There is no attempt to calculate exposure dose with pathway analysis, because the sources of human PFOA exposure are too uncertain. Instead, the biomonitoring data served as the sole source of human exposure information. Those data could be interpreted in a risk-assessment framework with the aid of PK mod-... 

A great deal of effort has been made by our authors to collect information from numerous sources and explore the data using the principles of environmental chemistry, toxicology, and risk assessment. Additionally, this book integrates the following information to provide important context and insight ... 

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