CRA Guidelines SRA Workshop
Citation:
Martin, L. CRA Guidelines SRA Workshop. Society for Risk Analysis 2021 Annual Meeting, N/A, Virtual, December 05 - 10, 2021.
Impact/Purpose:
Invited presentation for SRA annual meeting workshop addressing environmental justice issues; to inform and educate conference participants on the contribution of the CRA Guidelines in addressing community-based human health risks and comparing to purposes for which cumulative impact assessment might be used.
Description:
USEPA drafted Guidelines for Cumulative Risk Assessment Planning and Problem Formulation. The Guidelines lay the foundation for considering current and anticipated future cumulative risk analytical methods and provides guidelines for when such assessments are appropriate. They provide recommendations for developing a CRA analysis plan and are intended for use with other EPA guidelines on methods such as the Guidelines and Supplementary Guidance for Assessment of Chemical Mixtures. A defining feature of CRA is the methodological combining, or addition, of multiple stressors that can result in an adverse health outcome. Another important characteristic is that the CRA problem formulation can focus on either the stressor or the receptor. A CRA problem formulation beginning with adverse outcomes on a receptor (e.g., tissue, organism, community), seeks to examine the stressor(s) causing the adverse outcome. This is of particular value to communities expressing environmental justice concerns. Multiple agents or stressors can be interpreted broadly to include chemical mixtures, combinations of chemicals that share a common mode or mechanism of action or adverse outcome, chemical and nonchemical factors that might interact, or any combination of the above linked in analysis through the CRA problem formulation. This is responsive to concerns that disadvantaged human populations may be more vulnerable to regulated stressors as a result of psychosocial exposure-response modifiers. Different frameworks and methods for analyzing combined multiple stressors are discussed. CRA follows the risk assessment convention of examining toxicological dose-response effects on adverse outcomes from common mechanisms of toxicity, common key events, or converging adverse outcome pathways, and is distinguished from cumulative impact or health impact assessments which may consider a wider range of circumstances. Determining the appropriate assessment method requires clarity on the decision to be made and the scientific questions that need to be answered. These Guidelines describe considerations for when CRA is a suitable assessment method and detail steps for planning the CRA to meet the need of the risk manager. CRA can be applied to human health, ecological, or integrated outcomes.