Risk Assessment for Environmental Health

Professor Mark G. Robson earned his PhD in plant science from Rutgers University in 1988 and his MPH in environmental health from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) in 1995. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Plant Biology at Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and also is Visiting Professor and Senior Academic Advisor at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok Thailand. Professor William A. Toscano earned his PhD in biochemistry at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in 1978. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Pharmacology at the University of Washington Medical School, Seattle, from 1978 to 1980, after which he joined the toxicology faculty at the Harvard School of Public Health. In 1989, he moved to the University of Minnesota School of Public Health as Associate Professor and in 1993 to the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, where he was Professor and Chair of Environmental Health Sciences. In 1999, he returned to the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, where he is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Health, University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Dr. Qingyu Meng is an Adjunct Research Professor at Desert Research Institute and a Staff Toxicologist at Department of Toxic Substances Control, California Environmental Protection Agency. His research focuses on air pollution exposure assessment and chemical exposures in consumer products. He contributed to multiple Integrated Science Assessments, which serve as the scientific basis for setting National Ambient Air Quality Standards for criteria pollutants. He has authored and co-authored more than 70 peer-reviewed publications in exposure science. He is a member of the Society of Toxicology and the Society for Risk Analysis, and was President of the Tri-state Chapter of the International Society for Exposure Science. He is an associate editor of Human and Ecological Risk Assessment – An International Journal. Dr. Debra A. Kaden has more than 30 years of experience in toxicology and environmental health sciences, with an emphasis in the area of air toxics. She is a senior practitioner in the Ramboll’s Health Science practice. Dr. Kaden is a member of the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) – where she sits on several committees and is a past president of the New England chapter. She is also a member of the Society of Toxicology (SOT) and the International Society for Exposure Science (ISES). Dr. Kaden has authored more than 25 peer-reviewed publications in toxicology and environmental health sciences. She has spearheaded critical reviews of the state of science to identify research priorities for understanding exposure and health effects of mobile source air toxics, diesel exhaust, and electric and magnetic fields. She has also organized and convened workshops and conferences on scientific topics relevant to air pollution. She earned her MS and PhD degrees in toxicology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

List of Boxes

Foreword

Preface

Editors

Contributors

1. Introduction to Risk Assessment

Mark G. Robson, William A. Toscano, Qingyu Meng, and Debra A. Kaden

2. The Risk Assessment–Risk Management Paradigm

Gilbert S. Omenn and David L. Eaton

3. Risk Assessment and Regulatory Decision-Making in Environmental Health

Felicia Wu and Joseph V. Rodricks

4. Exposure Assessment: The Ways We Measure Exposure and Its Application to Risk

Assessment

Donghai Liang

5. Biological Monitoring of Exposure to Environmental Chemicals throughout the Life

Stages: Requirements and Issues to Consider for Birth Cohort Studies

Parinya Panuwet, P. Barry Ryan, Dana Boyd Barr, and Warangkana Naksen

6. Role of Epidemiology in Environmental Health Research

Wil Lieberman-Cribbin and Emanuela Taioli

7. Toxicological Basis for Risk Assessment

Mark G. Robson and William A. Toscano

8. The Application of Physiologically Based Pharmacokinetic (PBPK) Modeling to

Risk Assessment

Raymond S. H. Yang, Yasong Lu, and Zhoumeng Lin

9. Adverse Outcomes Pathways (AOPs)

Elizabeth V. Wattenberg

10. Epigenetics in Risk Assessment

Carmen Marsit and Jinze Li

11. Probabilistic Models for Characterizing Aggregate and Cumulative Risk

Qingyu Meng

12. Occupational Risk Assessment

Adam M. Finkel, Douglas O. Johns, and Christine Whittaker

13. Children’s Environmental Health Risk Assessment

Rebecca C. Dzubow and Ruth A. Etzel

14. Addressing the Limits of Risk Assessment by Focusing on Safer Alternatives

Risk Assessment for Environmental Health

Joel Tickner, Molly Jacobs, and Margaret H. Whittaker

15. How European Countries Approach Regulatory Risk Assessment

Helmut Greim

16. Envirome Disorganization and Ecological Riskscapes: The Algal Bloom Epitome

Matteo Convertino and Haojiong Wang

17. Risk Communication

Elaine M. Faustman, Jill C. Falman, and Susan L. Santos

Index