Subjective Estimation of Toluene Exposures: A Calibration Study of Industrial Hygienists

Hawkins, Neil C.; Evans, John S.

doi:10.1080/08828032.1989.10389920

Cited by 78 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…This trend is similar to the pattern seen in earlier work (2). This degree of overestimation of personal exposure levels is also similar to that found in an earlier study by Hawkins & Evans (9), which found that hygienists provided with a detailed description of the worktask in question estimated the mean exposure level to be an average of three times greater than the measured values. By providing limited historical exposure data as guidance, Hawkins & Evans found an improvement in agreement between the estimated and measured level and a reduction in bias.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

A training exercise in subjectively estimating inhalation exposures

Semple

Proud

Tannahill

et al. 2001

Scand J Work Environ Health

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

A training exercise in subjectively estimating inhalation exposures

Semple

Proud

Tannahill

et al. 2001

Scand J Work Environ Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…It relates agricultural practices to pesticide exposures and takes into account changes over time and the use of chemicals by farm area. Subjective assessments by experts to characterize occupational exposure have so far been used mainly in industry, and they have thus far focused on respiratory exposure (3)(4)(5)(6)(7). In some epidemiologic studies exposure assessments have been based on subjective assessments of exposure by individual study subjects (8-1 1).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Experts' subjective assessment of pesticide exposure in fruit growing

Cock¹,

Kromhout²,

Heederik³

et al. 1996

Scand J Work Environ Health

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“…Numerous methods have been proposed for the selection of experts: citations in the peer-reviewed literature (Wolff et al, 1990 ), peer nomination counts from surveys of the membership of professional societies Hawkins and Evans, 1989;Spedden, 1992 ), membership on a specific committee of the National Academy of Sciences (Siegel et al, 1990 ), as well as less formal methods for selecting individuals with the desired expertise ( Manne and Richels, 1994 ). No consensus on the best approach has emerged and an evaluation of alternate approaches was beyond the scope of this paper.…”

Section: Expert Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other investigators compared the ability of industrial hygienists, plant supervisors, and workers to categorize the exposure of different workers ( Kromhout et al, 1987 ). Hawkins and Evans (1989 ) conducted a study in which they requested industrial hygienists to predict toluene exposures for workers in a batch chemical process in two phases, one in which they were given only a description of the process and the second in which some anecdotal monitoring data were provided. Macaluso et al ( 1993 ) evaluated agreement between exposure assessors asked to rate exposures to solvents in a car assembly plant.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of expert judgment in exposure assessment. Part I. Characterization of personal exposure to benzene

Walker

Evans

MacIntosh

2001

J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol

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This paper presents the results of the first phase of a study, conducted as an element of the National Human Exposure Assessment Survey ( NHEXAS ) , to demonstrate the use of expert subjective judgment elicitation techniques to characterize the magnitude of and uncertainty in environmental exposure to benzene. In decisions about the value of exposure research or of regulatory controls, the characterization of uncertainty can play an influential role. Classical methods for characterizing uncertainty may be sufficient when adequate amounts of relevant data are available. Frequently, however, data are neither abundant nor directly relevant, making it necessary to rely to varying degrees on subjective judgment. Since the 1950s, methods to elicit and quantify subjective judgments have been explored but have rarely been applied to the field of environmental exposure assessment. In this phase of the project, seven experts in benzene exposure assessment were selected through a peer nomination process, participated in a 2 -day workshop, and were interviewed individually to elicit their judgments about the distributions of residential ambient, residential indoor, and personal air benzene concentrations ( 6 -day integrated average ) experienced by both the non -smoking, non -occupationally exposed target and study populations of the US EPA Region V pilot study. Specifically, each expert was asked to characterize, in probabilistic form, the arithmetic means and the 90th percentiles of these distributions. This paper presents the experts' judgments about the concentrations of benzene encountered by the target population. The experts' judgments about levels of benzene in personal air were demonstrative of patterns observed in the judgments about the other distributions. They were in closest agreement about their predictions of the mean; with one exception, their best estimates of the mean fell within 7 -11 g / m 3 although they exhibited striking differences in the degree of uncertainty expressed. Their estimates of the 90th percentile were more varied with the best estimates ranging from 12 to 26 g / m 3 for all but one expert. However, their predictions of the 90th percentile were far more uncertain. The paper demonstrates that coherent subjective judgments can be elicited from exposure assessment scientists and critically examines the challenges and potential benefits of a subjective judgment approach. The results of the second phase of the project, in which measurements from the NHEXAS field study in Region V are used to calibrate the experts' judgments about the benzene exposures in the study population, will be presented in a second paper.

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Subjective Estimation of Toluene Exposures: A Calibration Study of Industrial Hygienists

Cited by 78 publications

References 8 publications

A training exercise in subjectively estimating inhalation exposures

A training exercise in subjectively estimating inhalation exposures

Experts' subjective assessment of pesticide exposure in fruit growing

Use of expert judgment in exposure assessment. Part I. Characterization of personal exposure to benzene

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