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New Exposure Databases from the US EPA: Harmonized Chemical, Product, and Monitoring Information
Citation:
Isaacs, K. New Exposure Databases from the US EPA: Harmonized Chemical, Product, and Monitoring Information. ToxForum Workshop:Determining Relevant Low-Level Chemical Exposures, Brussels, BELGIUM, May 20 - 22, 2019.
Impact/Purpose:
This talk describes chemical use, product, release, and monitoring data being compiled by ORD to support Agency decision-making.
Description:
Exposure is a key component of evaluating the risks posed by anthropogenic chemicals. Exposure is the degree or contact between a chemical and human and ecological target populations. EPA’s Exposure Forecaster (ExpoCast) project is charged with collecting exposure-relevant information for thousands of chemicals for support of agency decision-making, including the development of datasets and predictive models. Quantitative data on chemical use in consumer products is needed to parameterize chemical-specific agency exposure assessments and quantitative exposure models used for the prioritization of chemicals for further study. In addition, environmental monitoring data (i.e., analytical measurements if chemicals in humans, other ecological populations, or in air, soil, or water) also directly inform assessments and provide additional data for parameterizing and evaluating predictive models. There are a wide variety of these exposure data publicly available from existing government programs, product manufacturer websites, historical efforts, public data repositories, and peer-reviewed literature databases. However, these data are difficult to access and analyze in a coordinated manner. Chemical synonymy is a notable challenge; chemicals may be reported under many different names, making it difficult to identify data relevant to any particular assessment in an efficient manner. To address these challenges, US EPA have developed new databases of reported and measured consumer product use information and measured environmental concentrations. These databases harmonize existing public information using new ontologies for consumer product category, chemical functional use, environmental media, and most importantly, chemical identifier. The resulting databases will provide transparent and sustainable resources for support of exposure assessment.
