scholarly journals Evolution of public participation in the assessment and management of environmental health risks: a brief history of developments in the United States

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken Sexton
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Risk Management ◽  
Public Participation ◽  
Environmental Health ◽  
Health Risks ◽  
Stakeholder Involvement ◽  
The United States ◽  
External Pressure ◽  
Environmental Health Risks

In the United States, the risk assessment − risk management paradigm that underpins federal decisions about environmental health risks was first established in 1983. In the beginning, the importance of public participation was not explicitly recognized within the paradigm. Over time, however, it has become evident that not only must risk-based decisions be founded on the best available scientific knowledge and understanding, but also that they must take account of the knowledge, values, and preferences of interested and affected parties, including community members, business people, and environmental advocates. This article examines the gradually expanding role of public participation in risk-based decision making in the United States, and traces its evolution from a peripheral issue labeled as an<em> external pressure</em> to an integral element of the 21st century risk assessment − risk management paradigm. Today, and into the foreseeable future, public participation and stakeholder involvement are intrinsic features of the emerging American regulatory landscape, which emphasizes collaborative approaches for achieving cooperative and cost-effective solutions to complicated and often controversial environmental health problems.

Public Perceptions of Environmental Health Risks in the United States

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 (1) ◽  
pp. 1892
Author(s):  
Mikyong Shin* ◽  
Lisa B Hines ◽  
Heather Strosnider ◽  
Lina Balluz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Environmental Health ◽  
Health Risks ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
Environmental Health Risks

Environmental health risks

2013 ◽  
pp. 178-187
Author(s):  
Roscoe Taylor ◽  
Charles Guest
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Health Risk ◽  
Environmental Health ◽  
Health Risk Assessment ◽  
Health Risks ◽  
Health Protection ◽  
Health Threat ◽  
Environmental Health Risks ◽  
Environmental Health Risk

This chapter will help you to understand the environmental health in the rapidly changing context of health protection, the usefulness of having a framework for environmental health risk assessment, and the process of identifying, evaluating, and planning a response to an environmental health threat.

scholarly journals Exploring perceptions of fracking and environmental health in a 3-county population in South Texas

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina W. Whitworth ◽  
Elisabeth De LaRosa ◽  
Taylor Mackay ◽  
Ashley Hernandez ◽  
Mary K. Martin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Literacy ◽  
Environmental Health ◽  
Health Risks ◽  
The United States ◽  
South Texas ◽  
Convenience Sample ◽  
Potential Health ◽  
Limited Knowledge ◽  
Gas Drilling ◽  
Environmental Health Risks

Introduction: The past decade in the United States has been marked by an unprecedented expansion of unconventional oil and gas drilling, including hydraulic fracturing (i.e., fracking). Concerns have arisen regarding potential health and environmental risks associated with the use of the fracking process. The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine community perceptions, concerns, and knowledge of environmental health issues related to fracking in three Texas counties near one of the most active shale plays in South Texas, the Eagle Ford Shale.Methods: A convenience sample of 153 adults over the age of 18 years in three rural South Texas counties completed a 46-question survey. Demographic information, perceptions of environmental health risks, and knowledge of potential environmental health effects related to fracking were obtained. A validated health literacy measure was also used to assess participants’ health literacy.Results: Participants were predominantly female (61%), white (75%), and Hispanic (62%). A majority owned land (53.6%) and had lived in their respective county for over 21 years (54%). Only 32% percent of participants had marginal or inadequate health literacy though a larger percentage of participants had limited knowledge of potential environmental health risks related to fracking.Conclusions: Approximately one third of participants had less than adequate health literacy as measured by the BRIEF. A high percentage of the population demonstrated limited knowledge regarding the potential environmental health impacts of fracking, suggesting limited environmental health literacy. Findings point to the need for environmental health specific assessments and focused environmental health promotion strategies.

Incorporating Social Sciences in Public Risk Assessment and Risk Management Organisations

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cécile Wendling
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
United States ◽  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Risk Management ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
The United States ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Public Risk ◽  
The Uk

The objective of the article is to analyse the use of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) in public risk assessment and risk management organisations in France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Canada and the United States based on more than a hundred interviews conducted with social sciences experts employed by or working for these organisations. If the added value brought by the integration of social scientists is recognised, the use of social sciences differs from one organisation to another. The article compares the different positions given to social scientists inside and outside the organisation, the various methods used and the different contents produced. The survey highlights a set of initiatives that are scattered, differentiated and ultimately have little in common – except that they often play a marginal role in the main activities of the agencies concerned.

Environmental health risks and assessment

2020 ◽  
pp. 196-207
Author(s):  
Wendy Heiger-Bernays ◽  
Kathryn Crawford
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Health Risk ◽  
Environmental Health ◽  
Health Risk Assessment ◽  
Health Risks ◽  
Health Protection ◽  
Health Threat ◽  
Environmental Health Risks ◽  
Environmental Health Risk

This chapter will help you appreciate: environmental health in the rapidly changing context of health protection; the utility of having a framework for environmental health risk assessment; the process for conducting an environmental health risk assessment; the major strengths and limitations of risk assessment; the process of identifying, evaluating, and planning a response to an environmental health threat.

Risk Assessment, Risk Management, and Fish Consumption Advisories in the United States

Fisheries ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 5-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. Reinert ◽  
Barbara A. Knuth ◽  
Michael A. Kamrin ◽  
Quentin J. Stober
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Risk Management ◽  
Fish Consumption ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fish Consumption Advisories

scholarly journals Rethinking the Role of Information in Chemicals Policy: Implications for TSCA and REACH

elni Review ◽  
2005 ◽  
pp. 22-37
Author(s):  
Lars Koch ◽  
Nicholas A. Ashford
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Risk Assessment ◽  
European Union ◽  
Risk Management ◽  
Risk Reduction ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sequential Process ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Chemicals Policy

This article analyzes the role of different kinds of information for minimizing or eliminating the risks due to the production, use, and disposal of chemical substances and contrasts it with present and planned (informational) regulation in the United States and the European Union, respectively. Some commentators who are disillusioned with regulatory approaches have argued that informational tools should supplant mandatory regulatory measures unflatteringly described as “command and control.” Critics of this reformist view are concerned with the lack of technology-innovation forcing that results from informational policies alone. We argue that informational tools can be made more technology inducing – and thus more oriented towards environmental innovations – than they are under current practices, with or without complementary regulatory mechanisms, although a combination of approaches may yield the best results. The conventional approach to chemicals policy envisions a sequential process that includes three steps of (1) producing or collecting risk-relevant information, (2) performing a risk assessment or characterization, followed by (3) risk management practices, often driven by regulation. We argue that such a sequential process is too static, or linear, and spends too many resources on searching for, or generating information about present hazards, in comparison to searching for, and generating information related to safer alternatives which include input substitution, final product reformulation, and/or process changes. These pollution prevention or cleaner technology approaches are generally acknowledged to be superior to pollution control. We argue that the production of risk information necessary for risk assessment, on the one hand, and the search for safer alternatives on the other hand, should be approached simultaneously in two parallel quests. Overcoming deficits in hazard-related information and knowledge about risk reduction alternatives must take place in a more synchronized manner than is currently being practiced. This parallel approach blurs the alleged bright line between risk assessment and risk management, but reflects more closely how regulatory agencies actually approach the regulation of chemicals. These theoretical considerations are interpreted in the context of existing and planned informational tools in the United States and the European Union, respectively. The current political debate in the European Union concerned with reforming chemicals policy and implementing the REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals) system is focused on improving the production and assessment of risk information with regard to existing chemicals, although it also contains some interesting risk management elements. To some extent, REACH mirrors the approach taken in the U.S. under the Toxics Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976. TSCA turned out not to be effectively implemented and provides lessons that should be relevant to REACH. In this context, we discuss the opportunities and limits of existing and planned informational tools for achieving risk reduction.

Economic Value of Reducing Exposure to Environmental Health Risks

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Kip Viscusi ◽  
Rachel Dalafave
Keyword(s):  
Willingness To Pay ◽  
Environmental Health ◽  
Risk Reduction ◽  
Health Risks ◽  
Stated Preference ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Revealed Preference ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Environmental Health Risks

Valuing the benefit of reduced exposures to environmental health risks requires assessment of the willingness to pay for the risk reduction. Usual measures typically estimate individual local rates of substitution between money and the reduced probability of the adverse health impact. Benefit-cost analyses then aggregate individuals’ willingness to pay to calculate society’s willingness to pay for the health risk reduction benefit. The theoretical basis for this approach is well established and is similar for mortality risks and health outcomes involving morbidity effects. Researchers have used both stated preference methods and revealed preference data that draw on values implicit in economic decisions. Continuing controversies with respect to valuation of environmental health impacts include the treatment of behavioral anomalies, such as the gap between willingness-to-pay and willingness-to-accept values, and the degree to which heterogeneity in values because of personal characteristics such as income and age should influence benefit values. A considerable literature exists on the value of a statistical life (VSL), the local tradeoff between fatality risk and money, which is used to value mortality risk reductions. Many VSL estimates use data from the United States for regulatory analyses of environmental policies, but several other countries have distinct valuation practices. There are empirical estimates of the benefits associated with reducing the risks of many environmental health effects, including cancer, respiratory diseases, gastrointestinal illnesses, and other health consequences that have morbidity effects.

scholarly journals A Sociological Checklist for Assessing Environmental Health Risks

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-45
Author(s):  
Daniel Benamouzig ◽  
Olivier Borraz ◽  
Jean-Noël Jouzel ◽  
Danielle Salomon
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Risk Perception ◽  
Environmental Health ◽  
Health Risks ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Environmental Health Risks ◽  
The Social ◽  
Risk Perception And Communication

The contribution of social sciences to risk assessment has often been confined to dimensions of risk perception and communication. This article relates an effort to promote knowledge from the social sciences that addresses other dimensions of risk issues. A sociological checklist produced for ANSES in France helps to identify and analyse social dimensions that should be given attention during the process of risk assessment.

Risk Assessment and Risk Management of Noncriteria Pollutants

1990 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 245-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Si Duk Lee
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Risk Management ◽  
Air Pollutants ◽  
The United States ◽  
Risk Information ◽  
Air Toxics ◽  
Hazardous Air Pollutants ◽  
Regulatory Decision

Noncriteria air pollutants are synonymous with hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), air toxics or toxic air pollutants (TAPs). The term noncriteria pollutants refers to all air pollutants except for the criteria pollutants (SOx, PM, NOx, CO, O3, and Pb). Air toxics are pervasive in our environment worldwide in varying degrees. Uses of these chemicals are varied and numerous; their emissions are ubiquitous, and they include organic compounds such as chlorinated hydrocarbons, dioxins, aldehydes, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, and heavy metals such as chromium, nickel, cadmium, and mercury. There are more than 70,000 chemicals that are in use commercially in the United States, and we know relatively little about their ambient concentrations, persistence, transport and transformation as well as their effects on health and the environment, many of which take decades to emerge. The United States Environmental Protection Agency, under the authority of Section 112 of the Clean Air Act, is mandated to regulate any air pollutant which, in the Administrator's judgment, “causes, or contributes to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to result in an increase in serious irreversible or incapacitating reversible illness.” For such regulatory decision-making, EPA's Office of Health and Environmental Assessment (OHEA) provides scientific assessment of health effects for potentially hazardous air pollutants. In accordance with risk assessment guidelines developed by OHEA over the years, Health Assessment Documents (HADs) containing risk assessment information were prepared and were subjected to critical review and careful revision to produce Final Draft HADs which serve as scientific databases for regulatory decision-making by the Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards (OAQPS) in its risk management process. EPA developed databases such as the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) and the National Air Toxics Information Clearinghouse (NATICH) and a technical assistance response system called the Air Risk Information Support Center (AIR RISC), in addition, to help in implementation of the National Air Toxics Program by state and local regulators.

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