Response Letter to Koivisto<i>et al</i>. ‘Evaluating the Theoretical Background of STOFFENMANAGER® and the Advanced REACH Tool’

Fransman, Wouter; Arnone, Mario; Borghi, Francesca; Cattaneo, Andrea; Cavallo, Domenico Maria; Cherrie, John W.; Franken, Remy; Galea, Karen S.; Haar, Rudolf van der; Heussen, G.A.H.; Jensen, Keld Alstrup; Koponen, Milja; Koppisch, Dorothea; Kromhout, Hans; Luo, Yu‐Syuan; McNally, Kevin; Säämänen, Arto; Spinazzè, Andrea; Tongeren, Martie van; Vanoirbeek, Jeroen; Verpaele, Steven; Vetter, Daniel; Viegas, Susana; Warren, Nicola

doi:10.1093/annweh/wxac001

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 22 publications

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“…Exposure models such as the Targeted Risk Assessment (TRA) [ 6 ], Stoffenmanager ® [ 7 ], and the Advanced REACH Tool (ART) [ 8 ], are now widely used in regulatory risk assessments for industrial chemicals as well as in the management of these and other processes that generate hazardous substances in workplaces [ 5 ]. There has been a recent challenge to the theoretical basis of commonly used exposure models under REACH [ 9 , 10 ] and a robust defence from model authors [ 5 , 11 ]. Recent work suggests that a weighted average of predictions from the TRA, Stoffenmanager ® and ART is more reliable than any one model [ 12 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Valuable Are Small Measurement Datasets in Supplementing Occupational Exposure Models? A Numerical Study Using the Advanced Reach Tool

McNally

2023

IJERPH

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The Advanced REACH Tool (ART) is the most detailed exposure model currently available for estimating inhalation exposures to dusts, vapours, and aerosols under a broad range of exposure scenarios. The ART follows a Bayesian approach, making use of a calibrated source–receptor model to provide central estimates of exposures and information on exposure variability from meta-analyses in the literature. Uniquely amongst exposure models, the ART provides a facility to update the baseline estimates from the mechanistic model and variance components using measurement data collected on the exposure scenario; however, in practical use, this facility is little used. In this paper, the full capability of the ART tool is demonstrated using a small number of carefully chosen case studies that each had a sufficient breadth of personal exposure measurement data to support a measurement-led exposure assessment. In total, six cases studies are documented, three where the estimate from the source–receptor model of the ART was consistent with measurement data, and a further three case studies where the source–receptor model of the ART was inconsistent with measurement data, resulting in a prior-data conflict. A simulation study was designed that involved drawing subsets of between two and ten measurements from the available measurement dataset, with estimates of the geometric mean (GM) and 90th percentile of exposures from the posterior distribution of ART compared against measurement-based estimates of these summaries. Results from this work indicate that very substantial reductions in the uncertainty associated with estimates of the GM and 90th percentile could be achieved with as few as two measurements, with results in detail sensitive to both the measurements themselves and worker and company labels associated with the measurements. For case studies involving prior-data conflicts, the estimates of the GM and 90th percentile rapidly changed as measurement data were used to update the prior. However, results suggest that the current statistical model of the ART does not allow a complete resolution of a prior-data conflict.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Valuable Are Small Measurement Datasets in Supplementing Occupational Exposure Models? A Numerical Study Using the Advanced Reach Tool

McNally

2023

IJERPH

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Understanding the limitations and application of occupational exposure models in a REACH context

Schlüter

Spinazzè

2023

Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene

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Evaluation of Stoffenmanager® and ART for Estimating Occupational Inhalation Exposures to Volatile Liquids

Lee

2023

Annals of Work Exposures and Health

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In practice, workers often handle the same chemical(s) of interest under different control measures (e.g. local ventilation, enclosed system) during a full shift. Stoffenmanager® allows users to predict either task-based or full-shift exposures. However, most previous studies evaluated the tool by comparing task-based exposures with measured exposures. Also, limited evaluation studies of the Advanced REACH Tool (ART) with the Bayesian approach (ART+B) are available, requiring additional evaluation studies. The performance of Stoffenmanager® and ART with and without the Bayesian approach was evaluated with measured full-shift exposures to volatile liquids in terms of accuracy, precision, and conservatism. Forty-two exposure situation scenarios (including 251 exposures), developed based on job tasks and chemicals handled during tasks from workplaces, were used to generate full-shift estimates. The estimates were then compared with measured exposures using various comparison methods. Overall, Stoffenmanager® appeared to be the most accurate among the testing tools, while ART+B was the most precise. The percentage of measured exposures exceeding the tools’ 90th percentile estimates (%M>T) demonstrated that Stoffenmanager® (16%M>T) and ART+B (13%M>T) were more conservative than ART (41%M>T). When the 90% upper confidence limit of the 90th percentile estimate was considered, the level of conservatism changed from low (41%M>T) to medium (17%M>T) for ART and from medium (13%M>T) to high (0.8%M>T) for ART+B. The findings of this study indicate that no single tool would work for all ESs. Thus, it is recommended that users select a tool based on the performance results of three components (i.e. accuracy, precision, and conservatism), not depending on one or two components. The strength of this study is that the required tools’ input parameters were obtained during the sample collection to minimize assumptions for many input parameters. In addition, unlike other previous studies, multiple subtasks, which happen often in workplaces, were incorporated in this study. Nevertheless, the present study did not cover all activities listed in the tools and was limited to volatile liquids, suggesting further studies cover other exposure categories (e.g. solid, metal) and diverse activities.

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Response Letter to Koivistoet al. ‘Evaluating the Theoretical Background of STOFFENMANAGER® and the Advanced REACH Tool’

Cited by 3 publications

References 22 publications

How Valuable Are Small Measurement Datasets in Supplementing Occupational Exposure Models? A Numerical Study Using the Advanced Reach Tool

How Valuable Are Small Measurement Datasets in Supplementing Occupational Exposure Models? A Numerical Study Using the Advanced Reach Tool

Understanding the limitations and application of occupational exposure models in a REACH context

Evaluation of Stoffenmanager® and ART for Estimating Occupational Inhalation Exposures to Volatile Liquids

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