A presentation made at an US EPA workshop on the development of decision support tools to inform exposure-based chemical prioritization.

1. WORKING FOR A HEALTHY FUTURE
Near-field Consumer Exposure
John Cherrie
INSTITUTE OF OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE . Edinburgh . UK www.iom-world.org

2. Questions…
• 1. What are some specific hurdles related to the issue that
you feel should be addressed in an exposure-based
prioritization approach?
• 2. What are some specific steps that EPA could take to
reduce or eliminate these hurdles?
• 3. Are there any examples of approaches that could
provide a template, or at least some ideas, for addressing
these issues?
• 4. Can you share one or two personal examples of how
you previously have addressed similar issues?

3. Specific hurdles to be addressed…
• Screening tools are necessarily going to predict worst-case
exposures
• Scenarios offer many advantages but care is needed in
their development
• Experience suggests tools will have high variability in their
predictions, both within tools for different substances and
between tools
• Aggregating exposure estimates problematic (you may end
up just prioritizing on the tool or on some substances-
specific bias in a tool)
• Limited information about tool validity

4. Specific steps that EPA could take
• Screen on a very simple worst-case set of scenario-
specific models
• Consider incorporating expert judgment in the
prioritization
• Consider developing an international database of
exposure measurements and contextual data that
could be used to validate consumer models

5. Approaches used elsewhere…
• In the EU Substances of Very High Concern
(SVHC) are identified by Member States in
discussion and though consultation
http://echa.europa.eu/doc/about/organisation/msc/
working_procedure_msc_providing_opinion_annex_xiv.pdf