Update to the U.S. EPA’s Guidelines for Human Exposure Assessment

The mission of the U.S. EPA is to protect human health and the environment by understanding, characterizing, and reducing health risks associated with exposure to environmental contaminants. Exposure science characterizes, estimates, and predicts exposures and provides information for developing exposure and risk assessments as well as effective strategies for reducing exposure and risk. When conducting a risk assessment, an assessor needs to understand whether an agent may cause an adverse health effect and how exposure to that agent may be reduced. Advances in the field of exposure science require updated resources for conducting exposure and risk assessments. The Guidelines for Human Exposure Assessment has been prepared to provide an updated resource for exposure and risk assessors both within and outside the Agency. This document builds on the 1992 Guidelines, incorporating advances in the field that have occurred since the Guidelines were originally published. It reflects the best science currently conducted across the Agency. This updated document describes the principles of exposure assessment, provides guidance on approaches to conduct an exposure assessment, presents references for more detailed information, and supplies hyperlinks to exposure assessment tools and technical documents found in the text. The Guidelines are arranged into chapters, each of which explores a component of the exposure assessment process, including: basic concepts and principles in exposure science; planning and scoping; incorporating lifestages, vulnerable groups, and populations of concern into an assessment; collecting and using data; using models; planning an observational exposure measurement study; evaluating uncertainty and variability; and presenting and communicating results. This presentation will highlight and showcase many of the updates in the document.