Publication of the U.S. EPA's Guidelines for Human Exposure Assessment

摘要

The mission of the U.S. EPA is to protect human health and the environment by understanding, characterizing, and reducing health risks associated with exposure to environmental contaminants and other agents. Scientifically sound exposure assessments are critical to the risk assessment process and inform the Agency's regulatory decision-making. Exposure science characterizes, estimates, and predicts exposures and provides information for preparing exposure assessments and for developing effective strategies to reduce exposure and risk. When conducting a risk assessment, the assessor needs to understand whether an agent may cause an adverse health effect and how exposure to that agent may be reduced. Advances in the field of exposure science require updated resources for conducting exposure assessments as part of the risk assessment paradigm. The Guidelines for Human Exposure Assessment (https://www.epa.gov/risk/guidelines-human-exposure-assessment) provides an updated resource for exposure assessors, risk managers and decision makers both within and outside the Agency. This document builds on and supersedes the 1992 Guidelines (https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/risk/recordisplay.cfm?deid=15263), incorporating advances that have occurred since the Guidelines were originally published. This updated document describes the principles of exposure assessment, provides guidance on approaches to conduct an exposure assessment, presents references for more detailed information, and supplies hyperlinks to exposure assessment tools and technical documents. The Guidelines are arranged into chapters. Each chapter explores a component of the exposure assessment process, including: basic concepts and principles in exposure science; planning and scoping; incorporating lifestages, vulnerable groups, and populations of concern into an assessment; collecting and using data; using models; planning and conducting an observational human exposure measurement study; evaluating uncertainty and variability; and presenting and communicating results. This presentation will showcase many of the updates in the document.