This article describes the evolution of the process for assessing the hazards of a geologic disposal system for radioactive waste and, similarly, nuclear power reactors, and the relationship of this process with other assessments of risk, particularly assessments of hazards from manufactured carcinogenic chemicals during use and disposal. This perspective reviews the common history of scientifi...

The US EPA and state regulatory agencies are developing sediment quality criteria and standards for the protection of water quality from sediment-associated contaminants. Many of the approaches being pursued rely in whole or substantive part on the bulk concentrations of selected chemical contaminants in the sediment as a basis for determining those sediments sufficiently contaminated to warran...

Background. We field tested and validated a newly developed monitoring and evaluation (M&E) toolkit for indoor residual spraying to be used by the supervisors at different levels of the national kala-azar elimination programs in Bangladesh, India and Nepal. Methods. Methods included document analysis, in-depth interviews, direct observation of spraying squads, and entomological-chemical assessm...

The current requirements and status of air quality modeling of hazardous pollutants are reviewed. Many applications require the ability to predict the local impacts from industrial sources or large roadways as needed for community health characterization and evaluating environmental justice concerns. Such local-scale modeling assessments can be performed by using Gaussian dispersion models. How...

Benchmark dose (BMD) modeling has been touted as a more accu­ rate method for conducting chemical risk assessments. In this issue of EHP, a team of researchers applied BMD modeling to hundreds of chemicals whose health effects are already known in an effort to optimize the approach. To calculate the highest safe oral dose of a noncarcinogenic chem­ ical, regulators must first estimate the point...

BACKGROUND Over the past 20 years, knowledge of the genome and its function has increased dramatically, but risk assessment methodologies using such knowledge have not advanced accordingly. OBJECTIVE This commentary describes a collaborative effort among several federal and state agencies to advance the next generation of risk assessment. The objective of the NexGen program is to begin to inc...

Predictions of surface water exposure to "down-the-drain" chemicals are presented which employ grid-based spatially-referenced data on average monthly runoff, population density, country-specific per capita domestic water and substance use rates and sewage treatment provision. Water and chemical load are routed through the landscape using flow directions derived from digital elevation data, acc...

Medicinal chemists have traditionally realized assessments of chemical diversity and subsequent compound acquisition, although a recent study suggests that experts are usually inconsistent in reviewing large data sets. To analyze the scaffold diversity of commercially available screening collections, we have developed a general workflow aimed at (1) identifying druglike compounds, (2) clusterin...

This paper focuses on one aspect of the calculations of risk in performance assessments of the deep disposal of radioactive wastes in the UK, namely the apparent contradiction regarding the representation of microbial activity in performance assessments of the release of gases and of dissolved radionuclides. A discussion is presented of the current understanding of the microbial and chemical de...

China has recognized the need to investigate and remediate former manufacturing facilities and return the land they occupy to a new, productive use. As a result, national guidelines entitled “Technical guidelines for Risk assessment of contaminated sites” were issued in 2014 to guide site investigations, risk assessments, and remedial actions to reduce or mitigate potential exposures of people ...