Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
5
pubmed:dateCreated
1997-2-3
pubmed:abstractText
The current approach to health risk assessment of toxic waste sites in the U.S. may lead to considerable expenditure of resources without any meaningful reduction in population exposure. Risk assessment methods used generally ignore background exposures and consider only incremental risk estimates for maximally exposed individuals. Such risk estimates do not address true public health risks to which background exposures also contribute. The purpose of this paper is to recommend a new approach to risk assessment and risk management concerning toxic waste sites. Under this new approach, which we have called public health risk assessment, chemical substances would be classified into a level of concern based on the potential health risks associated with typical national and regional background exposures. Site assessment would then be based on the level of concern for the particular pollutants involved and the potential contribution of site contaminants to typical background human exposures. While various problems can be foreseen with this approach, the key advantage is that resources would be allocated to reduce the most important sources of human exposure, and site remediation decisions could be simplified by focussing on exposure assessment rather than questionable risk extrapolations.
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:chemical
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:month
Oct
pubmed:issn
0272-4332
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Print
pubmed:volume
16
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
619-25
pubmed:dateRevised
2006-11-15
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
1996
pubmed:articleTitle
Consideration of background exposures in the management of hazardous waste sites: a new approach to risk assessment.
pubmed:affiliation
School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley 94720, USA.
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't