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An Overview of Measurement Method Tools Available to Communities for Conducting Exposure and Cumulative Risk Assessments
Citation:
MEDINA-VERA, M., J. M. VAN EMON, L. J. MELNYK, K. D. BRADHAM, S. L. HARPER, AND J. N. MORGAN. An Overview of Measurement Method Tools Available to Communities for Conducting Exposure and Cumulative Risk Assessments. Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology . Nature Publishing Group, London, Uk, 20(4):359-370, (2010).
Impact/Purpose:
The National Exposure Research Laboratory′s (NERL) Human Exposure and Atmospheric Sciences Division (HEASD) conducts research in support of EPA′s mission to protect human health and the environment. HEASD′s research program supports Goal 1 (Clean Air) and Goal 4 (Healthy People) of EPA′s strategic plan. More specifically, our division conducts research to characterize the movement of pollutants from the source to contact with humans. Our multidisciplinary research program produces Methods, Measurements, and Models to identify relationships between and characterize processes that link source emissions, environmental concentrations, human exposures, and target-tissue dose. The impact of these tools is improved regulatory programs and policies for EPA.
Description:
Community-based programs for assessing and mitigating nvironmental risks represent a challenge to participants because each brings a different level of understanding of the issues affecting the community. These programs often require the collaboration of several community sectors such as community leaders, local governments and researchers. Once the primary concerns, community vulnerabilities and assets are identified, participants plan on how to address immediate actions, rank known risks, collect information to support decision making, set priorities, and determine an evaluation process to assess the success of the actions taken. The evaluation process allows the community to develop new action plans based on the results obtained from previous actions. Tracking the success of the community actions may be as simple as a visua/tangible result (e.g. cleaning a park) or complex as the collection of specific measurements to track the reduction of toxic pollutants or to determine the presence of a specific contaminant. Recognizing that communities may need to perform measurements to meet their goals, this paper provides an overview of available measurement methods for several chemicals and biologicals in relevant environmental samples to a community setting. The measurement methods are organized into several categories according to their level of complexity, estimated cost and sources. community project technical advisors are encouraged to examine the objective(s) of the community to be addressed by a measurement collection effort and the level of confidence that needed for the data to make appropriate decisions. The tables provide a starting point for determining which measurement method may be appropriate for specific community needs.
URLs/Downloads:
An Overview of Measurement Method Tools Available to Communities for Conducting Exposure and Cumulative Risk Assessments (PDF, NA pp, 122 KB, about PDF)Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology
