Reducing uncertainty in risk assessment

Abstract

This article presents a summary of the proceedings of the Symposium and Workshop on Reducing Uncertainty in Risk Assessment, held at Michigan State University, on May 18–19, 1987. Participants addressed four topic areas: safety factors in noncarcinogen risk assessment; relevance of biological data in risk assessment; upper and lower bounds in carcinogenic risk assessment; and exposure assessment. One additional issue, risk communication, was discussed as a result of participant interest. Consensus recommendations in these five areas, resulting from the deliberations of the workshop groups, are presented. In addition to the specific recommendations, some general conclusions could be drawn. One was that the increased understanding of underlying mechanisms of toxicity, gained in the last decade, should be incorporated as much as possible into the risk assessment process. A second conclusion was that more effort should be devoted to increasing this understanding and developing the best methods for applying this knowledge to risk assessment. Last, more effort should be made to improve the communication of these assessments to the public and to policy makers so that the best and most complete information is utilized in risk management decisions.