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Application of Systematic Review (SR) Principles to Ecotoxicity Studies: ECOTOXicology Knowledgebase
Citation:
Olker, J. Application of Systematic Review (SR) Principles to Ecotoxicity Studies: ECOTOXicology Knowledgebase. Continuing Education Course at Society of Toxicology (SOT) 62nd Annual Meeting and ToxExpo, Nashville, TN, March 18, 2023. https://doi.org/10.23645/epacomptox.21753614
Impact/Purpose:
Presentation to the Continuing Education Course at Society of Toxicology (SOT) 62nd Annual Meeting and ToxExpo March 2023. The ECOTOX Knowledgebase is a comprehensive, publicly available application providing chemical environmental toxicity data on aquatic life, terrestrial plants and wildlife. ECOTOX data has been compiled over more than 30 years and currently includes over 50,000 references covering over 12,000 chemicals and over 13,000 species. Data from ECOTOX are used for all ecological risk assessments supporting pesticide registrations and re-registrations, all ambient water quality criteria for chemicals published since 1985, site-specific water quality criteria (by EPA Regions, States, and Tribes), and assessments used in emergency response. ECOTOX has established standard operating procedures that meet requirements for Agency systematic reviews of available information for use in Agency decision making. This presentation is part of the Continuing Education Course: Application of Systematic Review (SR) Methods and Principles to Data Streams Beyond Human Health Toxicity Studies: Ecotoxicity, Environmental Fate, Exposure, Mechanistic, and in vitro/in vivo Toxicity Testing Data. The presentation will cover the ECOTOX literature review and data curation protocols, discuss how these align with current Systematic Review methods, and highlight considerations for identifying and curating ecotoxicity data.
Description:
The ECOTOXicology Knowledgebase (ECOTOX) is a nationally and internationally recognized source of curated, single-chemical toxicity data for aquatic and terrestrial organisms. ECOTOX has been locating and curating ecotoxicity data using systematic and transparent literature review procedures to support ecological assessments and chemical decision-making for over 30 years. The well-established ECOTOX literature review and data curation protocols align with current Systematic Review (SR) and evidence mapping practices, including comprehensive literature searches; title/abstract screening followed by full-text review; established inclusion/exclusion criteria that can be stated in the form of a Population, Exposure, Comparator, and Outcome (PECO) statement; and data extraction from acceptable studies following controlled vocabularies. Extracted data contain sufficient chemical, methodological, and toxicity information to support study quality evaluations and data syntheses/reviews by groups internal and external to US EPA. ECOTOX currently includes toxicity records for over 12,000 chemicals and 13,000 ecological species, with over one million test results from over 53,000 references and new records added quarterly to the public website (www.epa.gov/ecotox). Several recently completed chemical projects will be presented with discussion of the ECOTOX-specific processes to identify, review, and curate ecotoxicity results for use in scoping reviews, evidence mapping, SRs, risk assessments, and regulatory decisions.
URLs/Downloads:
DOI: Application of Systematic Review (SR) Principles to Ecotoxicity Studies: ECOTOXicology Knowledgebase
OLKER_SOT-CE-SYSTEMATIC REVIEW_ECOTOX_14DEC2022.PDF (PDF, NA pp, 977.755 KB, about PDF)