Assessing the impact of environmental and occupational cancer hazard assessments on policy decision-making: An analysis of US Federal and state regulations

Abstract

Background: After an occupational or environmental carcinogen is identified as a human hazard, years often pass before policy decisions are enacted that will impact public health. Evaluating the informativeness of hazard assessments on science and regulatory policies is critically important but rarely undertaken. Additionally, no clear approaches exist to measure the influence of cancer hazard conclusions on science-based policy. Using the US Report on Carcinogens (RoC) by the National Toxicology Program, we aim to assess the use of cancer hazard assessments in Federal and state policies, public health impacts, and economic impacts associated with the public health impacts. Methods: We conducted a search of any mention of the RoC in the published regulations on the US Federal Register website, as well as state regulations included in Lexis Advance®. For each regulation, we extracted information on the carcinogen(s) regulated, environmental or occupational media, exposure pathways, tumor site, analyzed public health benefits, and metrics reported in the cost-benefit analysis. Results: Of the identified carcinogens in the RoC from 1994-2019, there were 76 regulations from 8 Federal and 6 state or district agencies that cited the RoC in the notice for regulatory action. The most frequently regulated RoC agents were 1,3-butadiene (N=12), acetaldehyde (N=13), formaldehyde (N=16), and benzene (N=14). The most common exposure sources regulated included air pollutants, manufacturing, and transportation. Of the 51 federal regulations identified, 28 were “economically significant” as defined in Executive Order 12866. The largest overall cancer-related economic benefit was a Federal regulation of occupational exposure to hexavalent chromium, a lung carcinogen. Discussion: Over 25 years, RoC cancer hazard assessments directly informed more than 76 health-based regulatory policies. Expansion of our approach to other cancer and noncancer hazard assessments may ultimately improve our understanding of the effectiveness of scientific conclusions on policymaking.