Oral

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines risk assessment as the qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the risk posed to human health and/or the environment by the actual or potential presence and/or use of specific pollutants. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) defines public health assessment as a process to evaluate exposure to chemicals in the environment and the impact of those exposures on public health. Location-specific risk assessments (i.e., a population around a Superfund site or Brownfield) and public health assessments are more robust when community stakeholders are involved in the conversation. In these cases, community members have important information to provide in characterizing the site, identifying exposure pathways, and developing cleanup solutions. Experience has shown that greater community involvement in these processes leads to a(n): • better understanding of the stakeholder’s perception of risk, therefore better tailoring risk communication efforts; • greater understanding and characterization of the level of hazard at a site; • enhanced ability to alert communities to ways to protective themselves against hazards; • improved dialogue and reduction of unwarranted tension between communities and agencies leading to greater input from citizens in government decision making. The resulting cooperation among all stakeholders increases the credibility of the entire endeavor, the accuracy of the risk assessment or public health assessment, and the effectiveness of risk management decisions. This session will very briefly overview the risk assessment and public health assessment processes. That presentation will be followed by an overview or risk assessment on Superfund sites. Two case studies of community involvement in site-specific scenarios will conclude the 90-minute session.

Session Objectives: 1. Identify the four steps in the human health risk assessment process 2. Explain how community stakeholders can help scientists more accurately characterize risk in site-specific risk assessment 3. Describe how community stakeholders can help policy-makers make effective risk management decisions 4. Discuss how “risk” is a value-based decision