Évaluation des risques sanitaires environnementaux

Abstract

Health risk assessment aims at determining the probability of occurrence of malformations, handicaps, diseases, or even death within a given length of time, following a potentially harmful exposure ( e.g., chronic or accidental contamination, occupational exposure). Its tools originate from epidemiology, toxicology, modeling, and statistics. Most risk assessments follow a well-defined scheme, which includes hazard identification, exposure assessment, effect assessment (with, in particular, a quantitative determination of the relationships between exposure and response), and ends with a characterization of risks at the relevant exposure levels. Risk assessment is in much demand from public health managers and several research needs have recently emerged : better integration of epidemiological data together with those from toxicological experiments ; assessment methods for mixtures, to better reflect real life multi-pollutant exposures ; need to focus on the most sensitive populations ( e.g., children, pregnant women). In conclusion, it is equally urgent to improve the methodology of health risk assessment as to collect additional data on environmental contaminations.