EKT3083 ENVIRONMENTAL RISK ASSESSMENT

CHAPTER 10
DEVELOPING THE EXPOSURE
ASSESSMENT
 A GOOD RISK ASSESSMENT IS DRIVEN ON
THE QUALITY OF EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT.
WHAT IS EXPOSURE?

• Exposure is defined as contact made between a chemical, physical, or biological agent and the outer
boundary of an organism.
• Exposure can be thought of as a two-step process in which contaminants enter the body through
contact and absorption.
• Contact occurs when a substance or mixture of substances is absorbed through the skin or enters
the body by the nose, mouth or other opening. Typically, risk assessors consider exposure to occur
through one of three exposure routes: inhalation, ingestion, or dermal contact.
• Absorption is a process that occurs when a substance is taken into the body from the respiratory
system, gastrointestinal tract, or through the skin.
• Exposure is quantified, or measured, as the amount of an agent available.
EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT

• Exposure assessment is a branch of environmental science that attempts to characterise how these
contaminants behave in the environment and subsequently result in human exposure.
• Exposure assessment is the process of estimating or measuring the magnitude, frequency, and exposure
to an agent, along with the number and characteristics of the population exposed. Finally, it describes
the sources, routes, pathways, and uncertainty in the assessment.
• Alternatively, exposure assessments may be categorised according to exposure assessment approaches,
exposure media, assessment tiers or types, life stages and populations, or chemical classes.
• They are generally used to characterise occupational exposures in the workplace and environmental
exposures to the general population.
EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT

• Exposure assessments attempt to address some of the following questions:

• Who or what is exposed?
• Does the exposure occur through breathing air, drinking water, skin contact, or any other route?
• How much exposure occurs?
• How often and for how long does exposure occur?
EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT - INHALATION

• Inhalation exposure can result from breathing air that is contaminated with particulate matter (e.g.
dust), vapours (e.g. volatile or semi-volatile contaminants), or aerosols.
• Estimating exposure from inhalation requires information on the concentrations of contaminants in the
air and the timeframe over which inhalation exposure occurs.
• To calculate an inhaled dose, inhalation rates and receptor body weights might also be needed.
EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT - INGESTION
• Ingestion exposure can occur via consumption of contaminated food, water and other liquids.
• Food can contain chemical residues as a result of:
• Intentional application (e.g. pesticide use),
• Deposition of particulate matter onto edible produce (e.g. from atmospheric pollutants), and/or
• Biotic uptake and accumulation from contaminated soil or water (e.g. irrigation water, uptake of
contaminants by fish or livestock).
• Estimating exposure from ingestion requires information on the concentration of the contaminant in
the medium that is ingested, ingestion rate, and the timeframe of exposure.
• Estimating exposure from non-dietary ingestion may also require information on the frequency of hand-
to-mouth or object-to-mouth contact.
EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT - DERMAL

• Dermal exposure can result from skin contact with contaminated environmental media, including:
• Water (e.g. during bathing, washing, swimming);
• Sediment (e.g. while wading, fishing);
• Outdoor soil or dust (e.g. during recreational, gardening, or construction-related activities); and
• Indoor dust that has settled on carpets, floors, clothing, counter tops, or other surfaces.
• Estimating exposure from dermal contact requires information on:
• The concentration of the contaminant in the medium that is contacted;
• Timeframe of exposure (contact frequency and duration); and
• Other factors that affect dermal exposure – e.g., skin surface area, dermal adherence of solids to
skin, film thickness of liquids on skin, and /or residue transfer factors.
WHAT IS DOSE?

• When a substance is taken into the body by one of the several routes of exposure discussed previously,
the amount that gets into the body in a biologically available form is called the dose.
• Dose is defined as: “The amount of a substance available for interactions with metabolic processes or
biologically significant receptors after crossing the outer boundary of an organism” (U.S. EPA, 2003).
• There are a few different ways to think about dose:
• Potential dose is the amount ingested, inhaled, or applied to skin, not all of which will be
absorbed.
• Applied dose is the amount at an absorption barrier (like the skin, respiratory tract, or gut) that can
be absorbed by the body.
• Internal dose is the amount absorbed and available for interaction with biological receptors.
DOSE PARAMETERS THAT CAN VARY OVER TIME

• Concentration is the exposure concentration of the substance of interest. This can be a measured or modelled value
in mg/m3 of air or mg/kg of food or other similar units.
• Contact fraction represents the exposure to contaminated vs. uncontaminated media. A contact fraction of 1.0
means, for example, that all of the food consumed(represented by a food intake rate) is contaminated. In this case, a
dose will be calculated for intake of a contaminated medium only, and this term does not need to be explicitly
included. In other cases, the “intake rate” will refer to the total intake of a medium, and a contact fraction of 0.5
might mean that half of this total intake is contaminated. Note that the dose equation in EPA’s exposure guidelines
does not include a variable for CF. CF has a value of 1.0 or less and is unitless.
• Intake rate is the rate at which the individual takes in a specific media. This might be an ingestion rate, a dermal
absorption rate, or an inhalation rate. Intake rate is expressed in units like mg/day or L/day. Recommended values for
intake rates of specific foods such as fruits and vegetables, meat, and fish are provided in EPA’s Exposure Factors
Handbook (U.S. EPA, 2011).
• The body weight of the individual is also included so that the dose is normalized to that value. Sometimes the intake
rate is already normalized to body weight, so we don’t need to have a separate term for body weight in the dose
equation. Bodyweight is typically expressed in kilograms. EPA’s recommended body weight value for adults is 80
kilograms.
EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT TOOLS BY APPROACHES

Exposure may be estimated using one of three approaches:

I. Direct measurement – related to direct measurement (Point-of-Contact) or personal monitoring
during specific time period.
II. Indirect measurement – indirect estimation or scenario evaluation
III. Exposure reconstruction – related to exposure reconstruction or biomonitoring and reverse
dosimetry
DIRECT MEASUREMENT

• This method is likely to produce the least uncertainty in estimating exposure.

• But it can be cost-prohibitive and can require extrapolation from short-term sampling to long-term
exposure, thereby increasing uncertainty.
• It is neither source-specific nor representative of an entire population.
• Personal exposure monitoring directly measures an individual’s exposure as it occur. It can be used to
measure exposure of an individual to contaminants in the breathing zone, in food and drink, and on the
skin.
• Considerations for choosing a monitoring technique include:
• Feasibility – comply with the study requirements for carrying equipment or recording activities?
• Accuracy – what level of detection
• Implementation – how many subjects are needed? Seasonal trends?
• Expense – cost for the sampling equipment and sample analysis
DIRECT MEASUREMENT – INHALATION

• Passive and active monitors used to measure inhalation exposure are typically compact and located
close to the breathing zone of the individual.
• Monitors that are comfortable and make little noise encourage use among study participants. But these
constraints also limit the sophistication of the devices used and how much they can measure.
• For both passive and active sampling, it is often necessary to extrapolate the absorbed dose from
measured concentration since the absorbed dose will vary depending on other factors including
ventilation rate.
• Passive sampling uses sorption or entrapment in a diffusion tube, badge, detector tube, or similar
device.
• Active sampling uses a small air pump to draw air through a filter, packed tube, or similar device. Unlike
passive samplers, active sampling requires electricity and moving parts.
 DIRECT MEASUREMENT

Radiation dosimeters of 1950s –

“pocket screamer” and
”chirper”

Modern radiation detection

device
 Passive sampling
More appropriate for measuring long-term
exposure
Samples are analysed using spectroscopy, gas
chromatography, high performance liquid
chromatography, or a similar method, depending
on the chemicals of concern.
E.g. diffusion badges for measurement of NO2,
O3, SO2, CO and formaldehyde. Organic vapours
can be measured in passive devices using
activated charcoal badges. Respirator pads
inserted into respirators in place of the regular
dust filters to measure exposure concentrations
in occupational settings.
Active sampling
More appropriate for measuring acute exposure
Active monitors are available to measure
particular matter 10 and 2.5 micrometers in size
(PM10 and PM2.5) using filters. The filter can be
placed anywhere on the individual and the
individual carries the pump and battery pack in a
shoulder bag.
E.g. cyclone samplers measure particulates.
Impactor and denuder filter packs can be
combined to measure aerosols and gases. A
diffuser can be coated with different materials to
measure different chemicals and gases.
DIRECT MEASUREMENT – INGESTION

• Duplicate diet studies (or duplicate portion studies) are ways to measure concentrations of a chemical
of concern in the diet - all the food they consume during a given period.
• This method can give an accurate estimate of exposures through ingestion of contaminated foods.
However, it tends to be expensive to implement and requires that participants be literate and motivated
to complete the study activities. e.g., alterations in an individual’s diet and noncompliance with the
study protocol can introduce bias into the intake estimates.
• Duplicate diet studies can provide direct measurements of chemical contaminants in food and the
intake rate of various food, typically normalised to the body weight of each participant.
• They can also provide information on changes in chemical concentration due to food preparation e.g.
reductions in residues due to washing or increases in chemicals due to cooking.
DIRECT MEASUREMENT – DERMAL

• Patches are placed on the body to collect the chemical of concern, with limitations - miss critical areas
depending on where on the body they are placed and extrapolation from a relatively small patch to an
entire body surface can introduce error.
• Whole-body dosimeters are intended to measure exposure to the whole body. E.g. badges worn on the
clothing, a coverall suit, and full-length cotton underwear.
• Removal methods include rinsing, wiping, and tape stripping to collect the contaminants of concern
from the skin to be analysed.
• Optical methods involve treating the chemical of concern with a nontoxic fluorescent tracer. Video
imaging is used to identify and quantify the points where the chemical contacts the skin.
• Portable x-ray fluorescence analysers have been used to detect bromine concentrations resulting from
polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) compounds emitted by consumer products from the homes of
a cohort of individuals in the Great Lakes area.
DIRECT MEASUREMENT – DOSE ESTIMATION

• Direct measurement techniques provide the assessor with chemical concentrations or amounts at the
interface between the environment and an individual. This quantity can be used to estimate the
potential dose to an individual.
• E.g., a duplicate diet study attempts to quantify the amount of chemical that a person consumes, which
is the potential dose for an ingestion exposure.
• To estimate the applied, internal, or biologically effective dose, an assessor would need to make other
assumptions regarding exposure. E.g., information about the amount of chemical absorbed (across the
gastrointestinal tract).
• The disposition of the chemical following exposure, e.g. the chemical’s distribution or metabolism
within the body for internal or biologically effective dose.
• In general, if dose beyond the potential dose of interest, the assessor may choose to use methods
similar or identical to those described in the Indirect Estimation (scenario evaluation) approach to
exposure assessment.
 INDIRECT ESTIMATION (SCENARIO EVALUATION)
• Scenario evaluation is an “indirect estimation” method that relies on an exposure scenario to estimate
exposures or doses.
• An exposure scenario is a set of facts, assumptions and inferences about how exposure takes place. This is in
contrast to Point-of-Contact approaches, which more directly measure exposures or doses, and Exposure
Reconstruction, which estimates exposure using information on an effect or outcome.
• Indirect estimation of exposure or dose ultimately requires quantitative values to use as inputs to exposure/dose
equations. The inputs to these equations are obtained through the development of exposure scenarios.
• Exposure scenarios rely on data or assumptions about the sources and releases of a stressor of interest, fate and
transport mechanisms, and concentrations of contaminants at the point of exposure.
• Information about receptor populations and exposure factors (e.g., activities and time frame over which
exposure occurs) are also needed.
• The general equation and more complex integrative models can be used to quantify exposures or doses for the
populations of interest.
• Point-of-Contact measurement approaches can be used to validate results of scenario evaluation assessments.
PLANNING TO ESTABLISH EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT
PLANNING TO ESTABLISH EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT
SOURCE-TO-EFFECT CONTINUUM

• Chemicals originate from a source. Once in the environment, chemicals are subject to environmental fate and
transport processes. These processes impact the amount and form of the chemical in the environment. Some
of the chemical may break down, or a portion may become immobile or inactive.
• The changes that occur between the source and the site of exposure affect the resulting environmental
concentration. Exposure is therefore a function of the environmental concentration of the stressor, fate and
transport processes, and time.
• When the exposure occurs, the chemical moves into the body of the exposed individual. The amount that
makes it into the body and to a specific target in the body is the target tissue dose, and is dictated by
interactions of the chemical with the metabolic processes of the body.
• When the chemical interacts with the biological target inside the body, a biological event may occur.
Depending on the type and extent of the event created, an effect or outcome can occur. This effect may be
minor, in the case of skin irritation from exposure to diluted chlorine bleach; or it may be major, in the case of
nervous system dysfunction and shutdown due to overexposure to an organophosphate pesticide.
WHAT IS AN EXPOSURE SCENARIO?

• EPA defines an exposure scenario as, “A set of facts, assumptions, and inferences about how exposure takes
place that aids the exposure assessor in evaluating, estimating, or quantifying exposure.”
• It’s important to note the difference between an exposure scenario and the elements and components that
are used to develop an exposure scenario.
• These elements dictate the terms of exposure to a substance for a selected individual or population.
WHAT ELEMENTS ARE ENCOMPASSED BY AN EXPOSURE
SCENARIO?
A risk assessor must consider information on each of these elements when developing an exposure scenario.
• Exposure setting
• Characteristics of the chemical of concern
• Source of contamination
• Exposure pathway and exposure route
• Environmental and exposure media
• Intake and uptake rates
• Characteristics of the exposed population

Before discussing these elements, however, it is important to understand why scientists develop exposure
scenarios.
WHY DO WE DEVELOP EXPOSURE SCENARIOS?

• Exposure scenarios help the exposure assessor picture how exposure(s) might take place, which is necessary
in order to identify the data required to conduct the assessment (U.S.EPA, 1992, p. 72).
• Exposure scenarios provide a framework for quantifying exposure (and thus also risk) by following the
chemical from the source of release into the environment to an individual exposed to the chemical.
• Finally, development of exposure scenarios helps the risk assessor consider different, specific types of
exposure, such as exposure to susceptible populations such as children and exposure via specific pathways
such as air, water, and food.
GUIDANCE DOCUMENTS FOR
EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT
EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT METHODS

• Industry-based studies
• E.g. diesel exhaust in the Diesel Exhaust in Miners study, benzene in a cohort study
of Benzene-Exposed Workers in China, and specific pesticides within the Agricultural
Health Study.
• Population-based studies
• Exposure assessment using job exposure matrices (JEMs) – an efficient way to assign
exposure estimates in population-based studies.
• Exposure assessment using occupation- and industry-specific modules – ask detailed
questions about work activities and exposures within its population-based case-
control studies to better capture within-occupation differences in exposure.
EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT METHODS

• Synthesis of publicly available exposure data sources – conducts comprehensive literature reviews for
specific agents to identify when, where, and how much exposure to that agent was likely to occur.
• Use of sensors and smartphone technologies – use state-of-the-art technologies in field studies to
characterise exposure, including use of direct reading sensors (e.g. black carbon, ultrafine particulate,
PM2.5) and smartphone apps to collect work activity diaries.
• GIS methods in environmental epidemiology – use GIS and spatial-analytic methods to characterise
exposure to environmental risk factors, incorporating space-time-activity information in exposure
assessments, and employing biological and environmental measurements for exposure validation.
ASSESSING AGGREGATE EXPOSURE

• Aggregate exposure assessment considers combined exposures to a single chemical across multiple
routes and multiple pathways.
• Aggregate exposure assessments often include a summation of all potential exposure pathways. This is
a conservative, health-protective assumption, because it is unlikely that a single person will be exposed
to the chemical through all possible exposure pathways (U.S. EPA, 2002).
• This approach is commonly used in the regulation of pesticides. People can be exposed to pesticide
residues in various ways. For example, residues of the same pesticide could be found on multiple foods,
in water, and/or in products used in and around the home.
• EPA conducts risk assessments for active ingredients in pesticides by evaluating all of the potential
pathways of exposure for pesticide residues to determine the potential risk from aggregate exposure.
The relevant exposure are dependent on the type of pesticide and its registered uses.
 ASSESSING CUMULATIVE EXPOSURE
• Cumulative exposure assessment is the evaluation of multiple stressors. In this process, the aim is to assess the cumulative,
overall impact on human health of multiple chemicals that act by a common mechanism of toxicity. It is important to
remember that the presence of multiple stressors does not necessarily mean that the stressor will cause or contribute to
an adverse effect.
• Cumulative exposure assessment considers multiple chemicals and multiple pathways of exposure, and might consider
groups of the population that are disproportionately at risk from exposure.
• Cumulative exposure assessment is not necessarily the simple sum of multiple, aggregate exposure assessments. Note that
“aggregate exposures” and “cumulative exposures” are sometimes confused. Aggregate exposures consider individual
chemicals and multiple routes and pathways of exposure, while cumulative exposures consider multiple chemicals and
multiple routes and pathways of exposure.
• A good example of EPA’s use of cumulative exposure assessment methods is the assessment of pesticide active ingredients
with similar mechanisms of toxicity. In pesticide risk assessment, chemicals in the same family or group (or those with the
same mechanism of action) are assessed together for cumulative risk. As a specific example, EPA has conducted a
cumulative exposure assessment for the pyrethroid pesticides, a family of chemicals with similar modes of action. For this
assessment, EPA considered acute and chronic exposure to residues of pyrethroids in food, water, and any residential
exposures.
• EPA also conducts a cumulative exposure assessment when it evaluates multiple chemicals with similar mechanisms of
toxicity in their residual risk assessment of air toxics.
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES
 FIELD SURVEY
Advantages
- Relatively easy to administer via online, mobile
devices, mail, email, kiosk, or telephone
- Cost-effective, but cost depends on survey mode
- Conducted remotely can reduce or prevent
geographical dependence
- Capable of collecting data from a large number of
respondents
- Numerous questions can be asked about a subject,
giving extensive flexibility in data analysis
- With survey software, advance statistical
techniques can be utilised to analyse survey data
to determine validity, reliability, and statistical
significance, including the ability to analyse
multiple variable.
Disadvantages
The reliability of survey data may depend on the
following factors:
- Respondents may not feel encouraged to
provide accurate, honest answers, or that
present themselves in a unfavorable manner
- Surveys with closed-ended questions may
have a lower validity rate than other question
types.
- Data errors due to question non-responses
may exist (number of respond vs. those who
chose not to respond), thus creating bias.
- Survey question answer options may be
interpreted differently by respondents.
- Customised surveys can run the risk of
containing certain types of errors.
 LABORATORY EXPERIMENT
Advantages
- A high level of control over the variables
- Can span across nearly all fields of research
- Determination of cause and effect relationship is
easy
- Clear cut conclusions –success, failure, of effects
when analysing the data collected.
- Many variations can be utilised – can tailor the
experiment for unique situation, while still
remaining in the validity of the experimental
research design.
- Can be combined with other research methods
for rigor.
Disadvantages
- Largely subject to human errors
- Can create artificial situations – the data can
be skewed or corrupted to fit whatever
outcome the researcher needs.
- Personal bias of researcher may intrude.
- Can take an extensive amount of time to do
full research, which could inflate costs for
consumers.
- Participants can be influenced by
environment.
- Sample may not be representative.
 BIOMARKERS

Advantages
- Allows the investigators to integrate exposure via
multiple pathways and can be easier to measure
for long-term exposure.
- Free from recall bias and tend to reveal useful
information of exposure.
- Inter-individual variability with biomarkers provides
important information in terms of how exposure
can impact individuals differently.
- Intra-individual variability provides some insight on
how exposure changes over time.
- An excellent tool for evaluating the effectiveness of
implemented exposure controls as well as PPE.
Disadvantages
- Can be expensive and require some intrusive
techniques to collect data from participants.
- Most biomarkers are experimental and there
is limited data on “normal” populations.
- The variability in analytical techniques that
can take place either within a lab or among
different labs can yield different results.
- Pose some limitations when trying to
extrapolate data collected on a sample
population to the general population.

The validity of a biomarkers depends on the sensitivity, specificity, reproducibility, stability, temporal
relevance and practicality.
APPLICATIONS OF EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT
 EXPOSURE EXAMPLE 1: SKIN EXPOSURE TO SOIL METALS

• Jim loves to garden in his backyard, where he’s been planting tomatoes and other vegetables for at least 20 years. He has four
raised beds where he grows vegetables, and he likes to go out and get his hands dirty in the garden. Jim gardens about 9 months
out of the year, and rarely uses gardening gloves.
• Jim buys soil for his raised beds from a local mulch business, and found out recently that some of the “Garden Magic” soil that he
uses had elevated levels of nickel and lead. When Jim is done gardening, he usually washes his hands and forearms, which are
covered in dirt.
• When Jim’s skin contacts the soil, he has an exposure to the soil and the contaminants in it. While the soil is on Jim’s skin, some
of the contaminants in the soil may move across his skin, and then into his body. The amount of lead and nickel that moves into
Jim’s body is called the internal dose. Since the internal dose crosses the absorption barrier of the skin, it is also referred to as
the absorbed dose. The process by which the contaminants are taken into the body across an absorption barrier is called uptake.
o Compare this to the intake of Jim’s drinking water, in which the contaminant does not cross an absorption barrier before
entering the body.
• Not all of the nickel and lead in the soil will make it across the skin and into Jim’s body. In fact, lead is poorly absorbed across the
skin (HSDB, 2010). Nickel can be taken into the body through the skin (ATSDR, 2005), but it is slowly absorbed. The amount of
nickel and lead in the soil that ends up on Jim’s hands and arms is called the potential dose. More specifically, the amount of
nickel and lead that is in the soil which comes into contact with Jim’s skin is the applied dose. Not all of the nickel and very little
of the lead in the applied dose will be absorbed into Jim’s body.
• The amount of lead and nickel that does make it into Jim’s body after passing across Jim’s skin (the absorption barrier) is called
the internal dose. Here, the internal dose is equal to the absorbed dose.
 EXPOSURE EXAMPLE 2: INGESTION OF PESTICIDE RESIDUES

• Jim loves to cook and eat, and each spring he really looks forward to growing tomatoes and peppers in his garden. Jim doesn’t
usually use any pesticides, but every once in a while, he gets a really bad infestation of potato beetles and uses some malathion
to control the problem. Sometimes Jim gets exposed to a little bit of the spray from the malathion while he’s treating the plants.
• Jim really loves fresh tomatoes right off the vine. He usually washes the produce once it’s in the house, but has a habit of grazing
on tomatoes and peppers while he’s out in the garden. Sometimes he may eat almost a pound of tomatoes while he’s out there
– they’re just so good! Besides Jim’s grazing, or incidental consumption, of produce in the garden, Jim also eats some store-
bought vegetables that may have pesticide residues on them.
• Risk assessors may take into account residues on unwashed produce grown at home and purchased in the market, in their risk
assessments.
• The residue of malathion on Jim’s tomatoes and peppers comes into contact with Jim when he eats the food. Once the peppers
and tomatoes are in Jim’s stomach, the malathion residue is absorbed by Jim’s stomach. The amount of malathion in Jim’s
stomach is the applied dose in this case, and the amount that makes it across his stomach lining and into his blood is the internal
dose. The applied dose is the amount of a substance that comes into contact with the absorption boundaries of the body.
• Malathion is a chemical that can affect the nervous system by interfering with the enzyme acetylcholinesterase. When malathion
gets into the nervous system from the blood, it can bind to acetylcholinesterase and prevent the nerves from firing properly. The
proportion of the malathion that makes it from the peppers and tomatoes, through Jim’s stomach, and into the nervous system
is the biologically effective dose. o The biologically effective dose is defined as the amount of a substance that reaches the cells,
sites, or membranes where adverse effects occur. This amount is usually much smaller than the applied dose because it has been
filtered by the body, sometimes by multiple tissues.
 EXPOSURE EXAMPLE 3: KITCHEN SMOKE INHALATION

• One of Jim’s favourite things to do in the summer months is to have a home-made hamburger – topped with fresh
veggies from the garden, of course. It gets really hot on some summer days, so instead of grilling outside, Jim
sometimes cooks the burgers inside.
• On one occasion, Jim was cooking burgers in his kitchen and went to answer the door. His neighbour had stopped
by and they got to talking. They had been talking for a while when Jim noticed the smell of smoke. He ran to the
kitchen and realized the burgers were burning and there was smoke everywhere. Jim breathed in quite a bit of
smoke while attempting to clear the air.
• The smoke that Jim breathed in made him hoarse and a little sick for a couple of days, with a nasty cough that
eventually cleared up. Jim’s exposure to the smoke only lasted a few minutes, but it was serious enough to affect
his health, at least temporarily. A short term exposure like this is referred to as an acute exposure, and lasts no
longer than a day.
• There are a wide range of contaminants in smoke, including particulates, volatile compounds, and a complex
mixture of combustion by-products. This is a different situation than the first two examples, where we were
relatively sure what contaminants Jim was exposed to. It is likely that Jim was exposed to all of these compounds
when he breathed in the smoke.
Applications for an Exposure Assessment
Epidemiological study Investigators assess whether exposure to an environmental contaminant or agent is
associated with a given health outcome. The ultimate goal is to determine if a causal
relationship takes place between exposure and disease.
Occupational health Studies attempts to characterise exposure and risk of exposure in the context of work-
related activities. The goal is to both identify and control risks that result from physical,
chemical, and other workplace hazards.
Risk assessment With the goal of a RA being to characterise the nature and magnitude of health risks from
chemical contaminants and other stressors, the exposure assessment is the component
that attempts to characterise who is exposed and how much are they exposed to.
Routine surveillance May be required by various types of industry to determine whether they meet regulatory
standards put forth by agencies such as the EPA and OSHA.
E.g. the EPA’s Great Lakes Fish Monitoring and Surveillance Program collects fish from the
Lakes annually and analyses them for contaminants.
Other Other applications for exposure assessments include evaluating the effectiveness of an
intervention strategy.
 TIERED APPROACH TO
EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT
WHAT IS THE TIERED APPROACH TO EXPOSURE
ASSESSMENT?

• The tiered approach to exposure assessment is a step-by-step, iterative process. Using this approach,
risk assessors progress from relatively simple to more complex analytical processes, as required by the
given situation. Individual “tiers” correspond to iteratively more complex (and typically data-intensive)
steps in the assessment (U.S. EPA, 2001).
• At each stage of a tiered exposure assessment, investigators evaluate whether the assessment results
are sufficient to support useful risk management decisions (U.S. EPA, 2001).
• The goal of a tiered assessment approach is to strike a balance between the costs of adding detail and
refinement to an assessment and the benefits associated with the additional refinement (U.S. EPA,
2001).
• If the screening assessment results indicate that the risks are at or below acceptable levels using
the most conservative assumptions, that will likely eliminate the need for more complex analyses.
SCREENING-LEVEL EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT

• A screening-level exposure assessment is often the first step in the tiered approach. The assessment
produces a quantitative, conservative estimate of exposure using readily available data. The estimate
can be used to make comparisons between multiple sites that are being evaluated or to prioritize sites
for further analysis.
• The benefit of screening-level analysis is that it is simple to perform and may help indicate that there is
not a significant problem. Screening-level assessments can prevent unnecessary resources from being
devoted to an area that does not pose a substantial problem.
• For example, a children’s toy might contain phthalates. The concern is that the phthalates could be
present in the toys at levels that are hazardous to the children using them, especially because the
children put the toys in their mouths.
• Based on conservative assumptions and the expected use patterns, risk assessors would evaluate the
expected exposure and determine whether it is above or below the Reference Dose (RfD). The results of
this screening level assessment allow risk assessors to determine if more sophisticated modelling is
needed (U.S. EPA, 2009b).
REFINING AN EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT

• If we decide that a site or scenario warrants a closer look following a screening-level assessment, we
can refine our assessment with more specific measurement data, better inputs, or better models.
• For example, we might use site-specific measured data for environmental concentrations or parameters
or for chemical release estimates. We could also use higher-precision sampling or analysis techniques.
• We can refine our assessment inputs by using site-specific data regarding exposure inputs, like ingestion
rates or the distance between the receptors and the source.
• We can use more complex models if necessary. For example, rather than using a simple box model for
fate and transport, we could use a model that explicitly estimates dispersion, deposition, and other
movement of a chemical within the environmental compartments.
• We don’t have to make all of these refinements at once. In many cases, we can conduct a sensitivity
analysis of our screening assessment to determine which parameters affect our exposure estimate the
most.
TWO IMPORTANT THINGS IN EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT

(1) Compliance with current limits is not sufficient

• Most chemicals have no occupational exposure limits, and the information used to set existing
limits is often incomplete.
• Existing limits are not always designed to protect the most sensitive workers. These limits might
even be out of date.
(2) Have a historical database for all exposure should allow identification of employees who were
exposed above the lowered exposure limit and enable the extent of their past over-exposures to be
estimated.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION