Human Exposure Assessment for Airborne Pollutants

Human Exposure Assessment for Airborne Pollutants
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 338
Release: 1991-02-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309042844

Most people in the United States spend far more time indoors than outdoors. Yet, many air pollution regulations and risk assessments focus on outdoor air. These often overlook contact with harmful contaminants that may be at their most dangerous concentrations indoors. A new book from the National Research Council explores the need for strategies to address indoor and outdoor exposures and examines the methods and tools available for finding out where and when significant exposures occur. The volume includes: A conceptual framework and common terminology that investigators from different disciplines can use to make more accurate assessments of human exposure to airborne contaminants. An update of important developments in assessing exposure to airborne contaminants: ambient air sampling and physical chemical measurements, biological markers, questionnaires, time-activity diaries, and modeling. A series of examples of how exposure assessments have been applied-properly and improperly-to public health issues and how the committee's suggested framework can be brought into practice. This volume will provide important insights to improve risk assessment, risk management, pollution control, and regulatory programs.

Principles of Characterizing and Applying Human Exposure Models

Principles of Characterizing and Applying Human Exposure Models
Author: International Program on Chemical Safety
Publisher: World Health Organization
Total Pages: 77
Release: 2005
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9241563117

The objective of this manual is to provide guidance to risk assessors on the use of quantitative toxicokinetic and toxicodynamic data to address interspecies and interindividual differences in dose and concentration-response assessment. Section 1 focuses on the relevance of this guidance in the context of the broader risk assessment paradigm and other initiatives of the International Program on Chemical Safety (IPCS) project on the Harmonization of Approaches to the Assessment of Risk from Exposure to Chemicals. Technical background material is presented in section 2, followed by generic guidance for the development of chemical-specific adjustment factors in section 3 and accompanying summary figures. Illustrative case-studies are included in an Appendix, and a glossary of terms is also provided.--Publisher's description.

Exposure and Risk Assessment of Chemical Pollution - Contemporary Methodology

Exposure and Risk Assessment of Chemical Pollution - Contemporary Methodology
Author: Mahmoud A. Hassanien
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 538
Release: 2009-03-31
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9048123356

The book contains the contributions at the NATO Study Institute on Exposure and Risk Assessment of Chemical Pollution – Contemporary Methodology, which took place in Sofia – Borovetz, Bulgaria, July 1–10, 2008. Rapid advances in mathematics, computer science and molecular biology and chemistry have lead to the development in of a new branch of toxicology called Computational Toxicology. This emerging field is addressing the estimation and prediction of exposure risk and effects of chemicals based on experimental data, measured concentration and biological mechanisms and computational models of biological systems. Mathematical models are also being used to predict the fate and transport of substances in the environment. Because this area is still in its infancy, there has been limited application from governmental agencies to regulating controllable processes, such as registration of new chemicals, determination of estimated exposure and risk based limits and maximum acceptable concentrations in different compartments of the environment – ambient air, waters, soil and food products. However, this is soon to change as the ability to collect, analyze and interpret the required information is becoming increasingly more efficient and cost effective. Full implementation of the new processes have to involve education on both part of the experimentalists who are generating the data and the models, and the risk assessors who will use them to better protect human health and the environment.

Air Pollution, the Automobile, and Public Health

Air Pollution, the Automobile, and Public Health
Author: Sponsored by The Health Effects Institute
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 703
Release: 1988-01-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309037263

"The combination of scientific and institutional integrity represented by this book is unusual. It should be a model for future endeavors to help quantify environmental risk as a basis for good decisionmaking." â€"William D. Ruckelshaus, from the foreword. This volume, prepared under the auspices of the Health Effects Institute, an independent research organization created and funded jointly by the Environmental Protection Agency and the automobile industry, brings together experts on atmospheric exposure and on the biological effects of toxic substances to examine what is knownâ€"and not knownâ€"about the human health risks of automotive emissions.

Modelling of Environmental Chemical Exposure and Risk

Modelling of Environmental Chemical Exposure and Risk
Author: Jan B.H.J. Linders
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9401008841

Mathematical models are being increasingly used to estimate the concentrations of a wide range of substances in the environment for a variety of reasons, including government control and legislation, and risk and hazard estimation. Exposure assessment has to be performed for many types of substances, including pesticides, industrial chemicals, pollutants, accidental discharges, etc. The interpretation of the results of model equations should always bear in mind the purpose for which the model used was built in the first place. Further, models are always an abstraction of reality, requiring simplifying assumptions to keep the models within the restraints posed by computer performance and/or scientific knowledge. The present book treats the theme of modelling chemical exposure and risk in terms of four main topics: model characteristics, applications, comparison of estimated with measured concentrations, and modelling credibility.

Human Exposure to Pollutants via Dermal Absorption and Inhalation

Human Exposure to Pollutants via Dermal Absorption and Inhalation
Author: Mihalis Lazaridis
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2010-03-22
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9048186633

Estimates of the air pollution health impact play a crucial role in environmental protection. These estimates require accurate data on the pollutant exposure and dose to the population as well as the dose–response relationships to calculate the health impact. From an air quality manager’s perspective there is concern about the validity and accuracy of these calculations. There is a need for information and possible ways to adjust the assessment. One important topic for air quality managers is to understand the relative cont- bution of sources to the total exposure. These sources may be coming from both different outdoor sources from sectors such as transport, industry and energy ind- tries, and from a number of indoor sources, such as heating, ventilation and indoor activities as well as out-gassing from building material and furniture. Indoor air quality is now drawing the attention of policy makers. The basic right to, and importance of, healthy indoor air was emphasized by the World Health Organization as early as 2000 and several countries have described target conc- trations for various pollutants. The WHO Air Quality Guidelines 2005 rec- mended the development of specific guidelines for indoor air quality and these are expected to be published soon. Indoor air pollutants have not been as extensively monitored as outdoor air pollutants and the evidence base for contributions to health effects needs to be strengthened.

The Plague of Models

The Plague of Models
Author: Kenneth P. Green
Publisher: Fullerene Publishing Inc.
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2023-03-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1778041302

Sometimes, reading the news, it seems we are drowning in a sea of risks. Every day, dozens of news articles proclaim some activity, some exposure, some change in the environment exposes us to new and terrifying risks. And every day, governments in developed countries pop out regulations to ensure that we make those changes in behavior to address those supposed risks, whether we want to or not. You probably think such claims, and regulation of risk are backed up by something resembling actual real-world evidence of harm. You probably assume that governments, when regulating, are relying on hard data: physical observations of exposures to a potential harm, physical measurements of harms that result from exposure, and that sort of thing. But if you assume that, you are probably wrong. Since the computer revolution of the 1970s, actual hard evidence of risk have been replaced, both in the estimation of risks, and in the regulation of risks, with computer models - simulations of reality - that may have little or no relation to the actual reality in which actual people live. This book is about the influence of computer risk-modeling on public policy, specifically, the giant gushing fountain of EHS regulations that have poured forth since the 1970s. That shift to simulation of risk has led to a massive increase in regulation: a Plague of Regulation that rests on the Plague of Models.