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The Basics of Risk Assessment to Protect Human Health and the Environment
Citation:
Wolf, D. The Basics of Risk Assessment to Protect Human Health and the Environment. Presented at 1st INTERNATIONAL COURSE-SEMINAR OF ENVIRONMENTAL TOXICOLOGICAL PATHOLOGY, August 23 - 24, 2012.
Impact/Purpose:
Providing basic information on risk assessments
Description:
Risk assessment is the evaluation to determine the chance of harmful effects to human health or ecological systems resulting from exposure to an environmental stressor. A stressor is any physical, chemical, or biological entity that can induce an adverse response. Stressors may adversely affect specific natural resources or entire ecosystems, including plants and animals, as well as the environment with which they interact. Risk assessment is used to characterize the nature and magnitude of health risks to humans and ecological receptors (e.g., birds, fish, wildlife) from chemical contaminants and other stressors that may be present in the environment. A human health risk assessment is the process to estimate the nature and probability of adverse health effects in humans who may be exposed to chemicals in contaminated environmental media, now or in the future. A human health risk assessment includes the types of health problems that may be caused by environmental stressors, the chance that people will experience health problems when exposed, and the level below which some chemicals don't pose a human health risk. In addition, a risk assessment for human health will include evaluation to protect people more likely to be susceptible because of factors such as age, genetics, pre-existing health conditions, ethnic practices, gender, and people more likely to be exposed. An ecological risk assessment is the process for evaluating how likely it is that the environment may be impacted as a result of exposure to one or more environmental stressors such as chemicals, land change, disease, invasive species and climate change. These assessments are developed in order to inform decisions about, for example, how construction of a dam may impact fish populations in nearby water bodies, if residential or agricultural application of an insecticide would harm an endangered bird species, if contaminants from an abandoned industrial or mining facility would reduce land use, the impa