Oral

The landscape of environmental human health risk assessment is changing with new advances in molecular systems biology, the advent of several recent and important reports from the National Research Council, and volumes of new test data that will soon be emerging from the European Union’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and restriction of Chemicals (REACH) program. At the same time, there are many continuing challenges in environmental public health protection, such as the lack of adequate toxicity data on tens of thousands of chemicals in commerce, the need to address the cumulative effects of multiple chemical and non-chemical stressors, and the recognition that individuals are highly diverse in their susceptibility to disease. Furthermore, the ability to measure changes at the molecular level has not yet been matched by an ability to interpret such sub- or pre-clinical markers in terms of the risk of future disease. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in collaboration with the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Human Genome Research Institute, and the California Environmental Protection Agency, is embarking on an exploration of how the new science and methods can help to address these and other risk assessment challenges. This session will examine this changing landscape of risk assessment, featuring a series of three short presentations that provide participants with (1) a brief history of environmental human health risk assessment and a population-based framework for risk assessment; (2) an overview of the science of molecular systems biology and an example of how it might improve human health risk assessment; (3) and some perspectives on the promise and the potential barriers to using this new information for more effective public health protection. These three presentations will each include a brief retrospective look at the issues in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Environment Section. The presentations will be followed by a 45 minute moderated panel discussion exploring how these potential new human health risk assessment methods may improve the protection of public health in communities across the country. The panel will include the three speakers plus two additional panelists from the state and local public health community.

Session Objectives: 1. Describe a brief history of environmental human health risk assessment and how it fits into public health protection. 2. Describe how molecular systems biology and genomics may impact human health risk assessment in the future. 3. Identify an example of how these types of data may be useful in risk assessment. 4. Discuss some of the potential promises and barriers to how this next generation of risk assessment may improve public health protection.

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH)