Perspectives for integrating human and environmental risk assessment and synergies with socio-economic analysis
Uploaded on 23 May 2013
The paper is downloadable only for members in internal document section.
If interested please contact alexander.pery@ineris.fr
For more than a decade, the integration of human and environmental risk assessment (RA) has become an attractive
vision. At the same time, existing European regulations of chemical substances such as REACH (EC Regulation
No. 1907/2006), the Plant Protection Products Regulation (EC regulation 1107/2009) and Biocide Regulation
(EC Regulation 528/2012) continue to ask for sector-specific RAs, each of which have their individual information
requirements regarding exposure and hazard data, and also use different methodologies for the ultimate risk quantification.
In response to this difference between the vision for integration and the current scientific and regulatory
practice, the present paper outlines fivemedium-termopportunities for integrating human and environmental RA,
followed by detailed discussions of the associated major components and their state of the art. Current hazard
assessment approaches are analyzed in terms of data availability and quality, and covering non-test tools, the integrated
testing strategy (ITS) approach, the adverse outcome pathway (AOP) concept, methods for assessing
uncertainty, and the issue of explicitly treating mixture toxicity. With respect to exposure, opportunities for integrating
exposure assessment are discussed, taking into account the uncertainty, standardization and validation of
exposure modeling as well as the availability of exposure data. A further focus is on ways to complement RA by a
socio-economic assessment (SEA) in order to better inform about risk management options. In this way, the
present analysis, developed as part of the EU FP7 project HEROIC,may contribute to paving theway for integrating,
where useful and possible, human and environmental RA in a manner suitable for its coupling with SEA.
If interested please contact alexander.pery@ineris.fr
For more than a decade, the integration of human and environmental risk assessment (RA) has become an attractive
vision. At the same time, existing European regulations of chemical substances such as REACH (EC Regulation
No. 1907/2006), the Plant Protection Products Regulation (EC regulation 1107/2009) and Biocide Regulation
(EC Regulation 528/2012) continue to ask for sector-specific RAs, each of which have their individual information
requirements regarding exposure and hazard data, and also use different methodologies for the ultimate risk quantification.
In response to this difference between the vision for integration and the current scientific and regulatory
practice, the present paper outlines fivemedium-termopportunities for integrating human and environmental RA,
followed by detailed discussions of the associated major components and their state of the art. Current hazard
assessment approaches are analyzed in terms of data availability and quality, and covering non-test tools, the integrated
testing strategy (ITS) approach, the adverse outcome pathway (AOP) concept, methods for assessing
uncertainty, and the issue of explicitly treating mixture toxicity. With respect to exposure, opportunities for integrating
exposure assessment are discussed, taking into account the uncertainty, standardization and validation of
exposure modeling as well as the availability of exposure data. A further focus is on ways to complement RA by a
socio-economic assessment (SEA) in order to better inform about risk management options. In this way, the
present analysis, developed as part of the EU FP7 project HEROIC,may contribute to paving theway for integrating,
where useful and possible, human and environmental RA in a manner suitable for its coupling with SEA.
