Decision support methodologies for human health assessment of toxic substances: agency for toxic substances and disease registry's perspectives on collaboration and infrastructure development among government, academia, and industry

Abstract

ATSDR's mission is to prevent or mitigate adverse human effects and diminished quality of life that result from exposure to hazardous substances from hazardous waste sites, unplanned releases, and other sources of pollution present in the environment. As part of this charge, human health assessments are performed through the use of data from animal studies environmental monitoring data and human epidemiological studies. Often sufficient data are not available to perform such assessments. Hence, modeling approaches are often used to estimate the likelihood of exposure to environmental chemicals and adverse health effects to human populations. In the last two decades, several computational techniques have been recognized as having potential to improve the accuracy of this process. As part of the assessment process, (1) chemicals of potential concern must be identified, (2) available data on their toxicity evaluated, (3) quantitative measures of their potential adverse health effects developed, and (4) exposure assessments made. The human health risk must then be characterized in a useful and understandable manner.