Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory Have Reported New Data on Risk Management (Characterizing Risk for Cumulative Risk Assessments)

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Weekly News -- Research findings on Risk Management are discussed in a new report. According to news reporting out of Argonne, Illinois, by VerticalNews editors, research stated, "In assessing environmental health risks, the risk characterization step synthesizes information gathered in evaluating exposures to stressors together with dose-response relationships, characteristics of the exposed population, and external environmental conditions. This article summarizes key steps of a cumulative risk assessment (CRA) followed by a discussion of considerations for characterizing cumulative risks."

Financial support for this research came from National Center For Environmental Assessment.

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Argonne National Laboratory, "Cumulative risk characterizations differ considerably from single chemical-or single source-based risk characterization. CRAs typically focus on a specific population instead of a pollutant or pollutant source and should include an evaluation of all relevant sources contributing to the exposures in the population and other factors that influence dose-response relationships. Second, CRAs may include influential environmental and population-specific conditions, involving multiple chemical and nonchemical stressors. Third, a CRA could examine multiple health effects, reflecting joint toxicity and the potential for toxicological interactions. Fourth, the complexities often necessitate simplifying methods, including judgment-based and semi-quantitative indices that collapse disparate data into numerical scores. Fifth, because of the higher dimensionality and potentially large number of interactions, information needed to quantify risk is typically incomplete, necessitating an uncertainty analysis. Three approaches that could be used for characterizing risks in a CRA are presented: the multiroute hazard index, stressor grouping by exposure and toxicity, and indices for screening multiple factors and conditions."

According to the news editors, the research concluded: "Other key roles of the risk characterization in CRAs are also described, mainly the translational aspect of including a characterization summary for lay readers (in addition to the technical analysis), and placing the results in the context of the likely risk-based decisions."

For more information on this research see: Characterizing Risk for Cumulative Risk Assessments. Risk Analysis, 2017;():. (Wiley-Blackwell - www.wiley.com/; Risk Analysis - onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1539-6924)

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting M.M. MacDonell, Environmental Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL, United States. Additional authors for this research include R.C. Hertzberg, G.E. Rice, J.M. Wright and L.K Teuschler.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.12933. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

Keywords for this news article include: Argonne, Illinois, United States, Risk Management, Risk and Prevention, North and Central America.

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