PMID: 8962513Oct 1, 1996Paper

Consideration of background exposures in the management of hazardous waste sites: a new approach to risk assessment

Risk Analysis : an Official Publication of the Society for Risk Analysis
A H SmithC C Wright

Abstract

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...Continue Reading

References

Jul 1, 1992·Environmental Health Perspectives·A H SmithM T Smith
May 1, 1991·The Science of the Total Environment·C C Travis, H A Hattemer-Frey
Feb 20, 1988·Lancet·C J ChenM M Wu
Jul 1, 1988·Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology·C C TravisA D Arms
Sep 1, 1987·Risk Analysis : an Official Publication of the Society for Risk Analysis·A H Smith
Jan 1, 1984·Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health·R D KimbroughG Fries

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Citations

Sep 9, 1996·The Science of the Total Environment·G H Eduljee, A J Gair
Sep 1, 2007·Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health. Part a·Len TurczynowiczAngela McLean
Mar 22, 2006·International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance Incorporating Leadership in Health Services·P Gary Jarrett

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