An overview of measurement method tools available to communities for conducting exposure and cumulative risk assessments

Abstract

Community-based programs for assessing and mitigating environmental risks represent a challenge to participants because each brings a different level of understanding of the issues affecting the community. These programs often require the collaboration of several community sectors, such as community leaders, local governments and researchers. Once the primary concerns, community vulnerabilities and assets are identified, participants plan on how to address immediate actions, rank known risks, collect information to support decision making, set priorities and determine an evaluation process to assess the success of the actions taken. The evaluation process allows the community to develop new action plans based on the results obtained from earlier actions. Tracking the success of the community actions may be as simple as a visual/tangible result (e.g., cleaning a park) or as complex as the collection of specific measurements to track the reduction of toxic pollutants or to determine the presence of a specific contaminant. Recognizing that communities may need to perform measurements to meet their goals, this paper provides an overview of the available measurement methods for several chemicals and biologicals in relevant environmental samples to a community setting. The measurement methods are organized into several categories according to their level of complexity, estimated cost and sources. Community project technical advisors are encouraged to examine the objective(s) of the community to be addressed by a measurement collection effort and the level of confidence that needed for the data to make appropriate decisions. The tables provide a starting point for determining which measurement method may be appropriate for specific community needs.

Cumulative Health Risk Assessment: Finding New Ideas and Escaping from the Old Ones

“…USEPA has also constructed methods for accomplishing stressor-based assessments (USEPA 2007b; Barzyk et al 2010;Medina-Vera et al 2010;Zartarian and Shultz 2010;Zartarian et al 2011), and begun development of guidelines for conducting CRA (USEPA 2013). A variety of conceptual methods, including social determinant models, health disparity models, and multiple stressor models, have been proposed as theoretical constructs to establish causal pathways and provide an abstract framework for CRA .…”

“…Historically, the USEPA has been at the forefront of developing definitions, frameworks, methods, and guidelines for CRA (USEPA 2003(USEPA , 2007bNEJAC 2004NEJAC , 2010Callahan and Sexton 2007;NRC 2009;Barzyk et al 2010;Medina-Vera et al 2010;Zartarian and Schultz 2010). Two of the most salient tools developed by the USEPA are the Community-Focused Exposure and Risk Screening Tool (C-FERST) from the Office of Research and Development (Zartarian et al 2011;USEPA 2012a) and the Environmental Justice Strategic Enforcement Screening Tool (EJSEAT) from the Office of Enforcement and Compliance (NEJAC 2010; USEPA 2012b).…”

“…The primary motivation for stressor-based approaches is to enable regulatory decisions concerning the health risks from exposure to chemical mixtures, such as pesticides (NRC 1993;FQPA 1996;USEPA 2002aUSEPA , 2006bUSEPA ,c, 2007a, drinking water disinfectants (SDWA 1996), and phthalates (NRC 2008). Effects-based approaches, on the other hand, are usually driven by concerns about "environmental justice" (Sexton 1997;IOM 1999;NEJAC 2004NEJAC , 2010Sexton and Linder 2010;Zartarian et al 2011 WHO 2008aWHO ,b, 2010a, and calls for "community-based risk assessment" (Barzyk et al 2010;Medina-Vera et al 2010;Zartarian et al 2011).…”

An Overview of Literature Topics Related to Current Concepts, Methods, Tools, and Applications for Cumulative Risk Assessment (2007–2016)

“…Contributions to measures and models for CRA include inventories of publicly available measurement instruments and databases [65,66,67]; development of indices of social and psychosocial factors [68,69]; studies of AL [70,71]; an animal model of chronic social stress [72]; evidence synthesis methods for epidemiological data [73]; and dose–response studies of chemical and non-chemical stressors [74,75,76]. …”

“…In addition to those publications that indexed available databases applicable for CRA [65,66,67], recent efforts have resulted in a public health exposome database and a toxic exposome database [64,128]. The exposome databases house an impressive breadth of information and could be useful for toxicologists, epidemiologists, biochemists, and omics-based disciplines interested in utilizing those resources for CRA applications.…”