Presentation of Risk Assessments of Carcinogens

Abstract

A one-year study of risk assessment reports has been performed by an Ad Hoc Study Group sponsored by the American Industrial Health Council, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Society for Risk Analysis. The study had the two-fold purpose of (1) improving risk assessment reports by identifying and illustrating desirable attributes that the authors should strive to achieve and (2) providing risk managers with a background for understanding and using complex assessment reports. During the study, the group reviewed 10 state-of-the-science risk assessment reports as case studies and interacted with several practicing risk managers. Their results are given as a set of general attributes plus four specific sets formulated under the risk assessment framework developed by the National Academy of Sciences: hazard identification, dose-response evaluation, exposure assessment, and risk characterization. The study focused on carcinogenic risks, but many of the attributes and conclusions apply to other types of health risk assessments.