Reports

Science and Decisions: Advancing Risk Assessment (2008)

Report in Brief

Risk assessments evaluate potential adverse health effects posed by harmful chemicals found in the environment and inform a range of decisions from protecting air and water to ensuring food, drug, and consumer product safety. Unfortunately, the risk assessment process is bogged down by challenges to its timeliness and credibility, a lack of adequate resources, and disconnects between the available scientific data and the information needs of decision-makers. In light of these challenges, EPA asked the National Research Council to conduct an independent study on improvements that could be made to risk assessment. The report concludes that EPA's overall concept of risk assessment, which is based on the National Research Council's 1983 "Red Book," should be retained but that a number of significant improvements are needed to advance the use of risk assessment in decision making. Recommended changes include greater attention to planning and problem formulation, improved stakeholder involvement, and a better match of the level of detail needed in a risk assessment to the questions that should be addressed. The report also concludes that a unified approach to cancer and noncancer dose-response assessment is scientifically feasible and should be pursued.
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