Critical review of methods for risk ranking of food-related hazards, based on risks for human health

Fels‐Klerx, H.J. van der; Asselt, E.D. van; Raley, Marian; Poulsen, Morten; Korsgaard, Helle; Bredsdorff, Lea; Nauta, Maarten; D’Agostino, Martin; Coles, David; Marvin, H.J.P.; Frewer, Lynn J.

doi:10.1080/10408398.2016.1141165

Cited by 91 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…A scoring method was a useful technique to assess hazards, as it is semiquantitative, easy to interpret, and can include stakeholder perception (van der Fels-Klerx et al, 2018). Moreover, several different types of hazards (chemical, physical, and microbiological) could be evaluated alongside one another.…”

Section: Hazard Rankingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Food safety hazards in the European seaweed chain

Banach

Hil

Fels‐Klerx

2020

Comp Rev Food Sci Food Safe

136

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Seaweed is a source of protein that can help overcome the anticipated challenges of a growing world population and the current challenges for finding alternatives for animal proteins in the Western diet. Thus far, data on the safety of seaweed for feed and food purposes in the Western world are scattered. This study aimed to review the available knowledge on the presence of food safety hazards in seaweed, including factors influencing their presence, and to prioritize the hazards that may pose a risk to human health. Given current knowledge from the literature, data from the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed, and results from a stakeholder survey, 22 food safety hazards were ranked into major (4), moderate (5), and minor (13) hazards. Arsenic, cadmium, iodine, and Salmonella were identified as major hazards. Hazards, where data gaps exist, should be carefully assessed. These include pesticide residues, dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls, brominated flame retardants, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, pharmaceuticals, marine biotoxins, allergens, micro‐ and nanoplastics, other pathogenic bacteria, norovirus, and hepatitis E virus. It is recommended to collect more data on these hazards in future studies. Many factors can affect the presence of hazards including seaweed type, physiology, season, harvest and cultivation environment, geography including the location of cultivation, alongside further processing. Moreover, when seaweed is cultivated near industrialized or anthropogenic activities, these activities may negatively influence water quality, which can increase the likelihood of hazards in seaweed. Results of the ranking prioritized hazards can be used to prioritize monitoring programs and adjusted given future additional knowledge covering the data gaps.

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Section: Hazard Rankingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Food safety hazards in the European seaweed chain

Banach

Hil

Fels‐Klerx

2020

Comp Rev Food Sci Food Safe

136

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“…Risk ranking of chemicals using the Risk Thermometer tool A case study was performed by applying the Risk Thermometer to chemicals for which EFSA has made risk assessments providing both toxicity and exposure data in the European Union (EU). A detailed description of the Risk Thermometer can be found in Sand et al (2015). The required input parameters for this analysis are described below.…”

Section: Activities/methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently, Van der Fels‐Klerx et al. () reviewed risk ranking methods. Methods have been classified as quantitative, semi‐quantitative and qualitative.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The drawback with this type of method is that an extra safety margin specifically for the nature/severity of the critical effect is only applied in the case of genotoxic cancer risk. To address this issue, a tool called Risk Thermometer was developed by the Swedish National Food Agency (NFA; Sand et al, 2015). This method uses an extra AF that accounts for the severity of the critical health effect in a systematic manner, resulting in a modified risk ratio denoted as the severity-adjusted margin of exposure (SAMOE).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Risk ranking of chemical and microbiological hazards in food

Langerholc¹,

Lindqvist²,

Sand³

2018

EFS2

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Risk ranking is a versatile tool used to prioritise activities performed by public health regulatory bodies. It also allows efficient communication between all stakeholders in the process of risk analysis. However, risk ranking methods are still not optimal. Because of the different approaches employed in the risk assessment of microbiological agents and chemicals, it is difficult to rank them together using the same metrics. In our work, we first discuss differences and commonalities between chemical and microbiological risk assessment to provide a starting point for consideration of a common risk ranking platform. In the second part, we perform risk ranking of contaminants and regulated chemicals using the recently developed Risk Thermometer tool. In this approach, chemicals are not ranked solely on the basis of the margin of exposure between a reference value and the exposure, but also by considering the severity of the critical health effects used. The results show that ranking using both methods provides different results from the use of either method alone. Overall, specific chemical groups (i.e. heavy metals, pesticides, etc.) do not generally rank higher or lower, but individual compounds are scattered in the rankings from low to high. Risk ranking methods demand further development to gain wide acceptability and recognition.

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“…When metrics are used beyond the level of the general population, it is important to consider the impact of variability between consumers. Both the risk-benefit assessors and the decision makers should be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the health metric chosen, as well as the underlying ethical dimensions (Arnesen & Kapiriri, 2004;Arnesen & Nord, 1999;Van der Fels-Klerx et al, 2018).…”

Section: The Use Of Quantitative Metricsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Meeting the challenges in the development of risk-benefit assessment of foods

Nauta

Andersen

Pilegaard

et al. 2018

Trends in Food Science & Technology

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A B S T R A C TBackground: Risk-benefit assessment (RBA) of foods aims to assess the combined negative and positive health effects associated with food intake. RBAs integrate chemical and microbiological risk assessment with risk and benefit assessment in nutrition. Scope and Approach: Based on the past experiences and the methodological differences between the underlying research disciplines, this paper aims to describe the recent progress in RBAs, identifying the key challenges that need to be addressed for further development, and making suggestions for meeting these challenges. Key Findings and Conclusions: Ten specific challenges are identified and discussed. They include the variety of different definitions and terminologies used in the underlying research disciplines, the differences between the "bottom-up" and the "top-down" approaches and the need for clear risk-benefit questions. The frequent lack of data and knowledge with their consequential uncertainties is considered, as well as the imbalance in the level of scientific evidence associated with health risks and benefits. The challenges that are consequential to the need of considering substitution issues are discussed, as are those related to the inclusion of microbiological hazards. Further challenges include the choice of the integrative health metrics and the potential scope of RBAs, which may go beyond the health effect. Finally, the need for more practical applications of RBA is stressed. Suggestions for meeting the identified challenges include an increased interdisciplinary consensus, reconsideration of methodological approaches and health metrics based on a categorisation of risk-benefit questions, and the performance of case studies to experience the feasibility of the proposed approaches.

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Critical review of methods for risk ranking of food-related hazards, based on risks for human health

Cited by 91 publications

References 63 publications

Food safety hazards in the European seaweed chain

Food safety hazards in the European seaweed chain

Risk ranking of chemical and microbiological hazards in food

Meeting the challenges in the development of risk-benefit assessment of foods

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