Selection of appropriate toxicological values as points-of-departure for risk management has major implications for both public health and environmental decision making. The reference dose or concentration, the standard benchmark for evaluating non-cancer risk, is developed based on the most sensitive health effect of a chemical and includes safety factors to account for uncertainty. Cumulative risk assessments that consider multiple chemicals and multiple critical health effects may not be well served by existing benchmarks. As part of the development of a community-based cumulative risk methodology a database was designed to make maximum use of existing peer-reviewed toxicological information on multiple health effects for the Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs). Peer-reviewed chronic inhalation no- or low-observed-adverse-effect-level values for each HAP were collected from searches in four national toxicological databases. This database contains 300 effect-specific values compared to 149 regulatory benchmarks used by the US EPA's Cumulative Exposure Project. The alternative database contains more values for more HAPs than the benchmark database for all major health effects. Discussion will include comparison of each database as a health effect prioritization tool and a comparison of their use in a cumulative risk case study.
Learning Objectives: Discuss the strengths and limitations of toxicologically-based quantitative risk assessment for environmental health decision-making
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: CDC
I have a significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Relationship: This work was supported by CDC grant number T01/CCT317577-01.