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NEW APPROACHES AND TOOLS FOR THE CONDUCT OF COMMUNITY-BASED CUMULATIVE RISK ASSESSMENTS
Impact/Purpose:
A. Long Term Goals
1. To develop cumulative risk assessment tools with broad applicability and used to assess consequences of exposure
2. To significantly reduce risk in communities where excess risk is identified
B. Objectives
1. Develop Research Plan
a. Creation of knowledge base
b. Identify, compile, and evaluate current use tools
c. Training/continuing education opportunities
1) Risk (e.g., assessment, communication, perception, management)
2) Seminar series
d. Define elements of the program
1) Propose applications of available tools
2) Propose new tools to develop
e. Develop partnerships/collaborators
1) Incorporate communication outreach plan
2. Apply Research Plan
a. Define specific projects
b. Use/modify/create approaches/protocols/tools
Description:
Individuals have differential exposures and potential risk of adverse health effects, regardless of whether chemical exposure occurs singly or as mixtures of several chemicals. Elevated exposures can result from frequent contact with environmental contaminants and depends on the spatial and temporal variation in chemical concentrations and human time-location-activity-patterns. Progress has been made in estimating aggregate exposure to single chemicals through the development of probabilistic models that account for variations in human activities. However, the traditional approach of focusing on a single chemical does not provide a realistic description of exposures and cumulative risk in the real-world. Risk assessments within EPA are now evolving toward cumulative assessments, which in the broadest sense address risks from exposures to multiple chemical and nonchemical stressors accumulated over time.
When considering multiple stressors and their location of occurrence and contact, increased risk may be shared among groups of individuals or within a community. For example, where a community is located will determine the sources, routes, pathways, and magnitude of chemical exposures. Community norms may influence the activity patterns and dietary habits which will determine the way individuals come in contact with contaminated media. Finally, community may be defined by other stressors that could impact risk, including socioeconomic status (SES), cultural behavior, access to healthcare, and educational level. Focusing on the community, a multidimensional and dynamic classification defined by geographical and or demographical attributes that are common among the group, provides a rational starting point for developing, evaluating, and applying cumulative risk tools.
Within this task we will develop a research plan to address important needs for quantitatively and qualitatively assessing cumulative risks in communities. The anticipated research can be summarized into a few components. First, existing community-based risk assessments tools and approaches will be compiled, reviewed, and evaluated to assist in the generation of hypotheses regarding how to appropriately address spatial and temporal patterns of exposure to multiple chemicals and non-chemical stressors (e.g., physical, biological and psychosocial) and how to incorporate individual human attributes (e.g., health status, behaviors, life stage) that are reflective of general community structure. Next, specific tools will be used/modified/designed for project applications identified in the research plan to demonstrate the utility of the tools and, when supplemented with appropriate measures, to determine the value added to the assessment. Existing approaches/protocols for the conduct of community-based assessments will be evaluated in addition to identifying new protocols that need to be developed. Finally research will be conducted on approaches that effectively implement and communicate prevention/intervention strategies to communities. This plan will provide researchers within ORD the direction needed to contribute toward answering questions about how to identify and prioritize communities at risk. Ultimately implementation of the plan will advance human exposure research by providing evaluated computational tools, novel methods and approaches to perform effective community-based cumulative risk assessments for use by regulatory decision-makers.