Sheldon Margen Public Health Library
1 University Hall
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/PUBL/risk.html

Health Risk Assessment Resources

Organizations and Agencies

Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (US DHHS)

Includes Hazardous Substances & Public Health (newsletter), Minimal Risk Levels (MRLs) for Hazardous Substances, Toxicological Profiles, and HazDat (Hazardous Substance Release/Health Effects Database).

A Primer on Health Risk Communication Principles and Practices

"The purpose of this Primer is to provide a framework of principles and approaches for the communications of health risk information to diverse audiences".

Ecological Risk Analysis: Guidance, Tools, and Applications (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, US Department of Energy)

This site contains information and resources on the role of ecological risk analysis in environmental decision making. It includes information on ecological screening benchmarks, biological uptake, various guidance documents, as well as information for various types of contaminated sites.

Food Safety Risk Analysis Clearinghouse

A joint effort of the University of Maryland and the US Food and Drug Administration, the Clearinghouse aims to assist those involved with the many aspects of risk analysis as it pertains to food safety. The site provides terminology definitions, completed and ongoing food safety risk assessments, online tutorials, a list of databases, and more.

Green Mountain Institute for Environmental Democracy

GMI was orignially established to provide technical assistance--paired with federal financial assistance--to state environmental agencies in the process of completing a comparative risk assessment. GMI works "to promote effective, collaborative decision making processes by providing services to projects that use information-based tools to address the health of their environment and the people in it."

Harvard Center for Risk Analysis (Harvard School of Public Health)

HCRA conducts research in four main areas: economic evaluation of medical technology, motor vehicles and public health, environmental science, and food safety and agriculture. Their site includes News Releases as well as their free electronic newsletter Risk in Perspective.

The CEA Registry: Standardizing the Methods and Practices of Cost-Effectiveness Analysis

"This Web site [from HCRA and the Harvard School of Public health] can be used to compare the cost-effectiveness of a broad range of interventions using standardizing cost-utility ratios, and to investigate variations in the methods used in their estimation. The CUA Registry web site includes the following sections:

• the reference list from our comprehensive database of lifesaving interventions that have used costs per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) to measure health benefits;
• the audit form that readers used to abstract data from the cost-utility analyses;
• a comprehensive league table of all of the ratios in the data base;
• a league table of cost/QALY ratios that adhere to the recommendations of the USPHS Panel on Cost-Effectiveness in Health and Medicine; and
• data on the reporting and methods used in the cost-utility analyses."

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - Risk-Related Research

LBL conducts research in human exposure assessment, cancer risk assessment, biologic effects of complex chemical mixtures, electromagnetic fields, integrated risk-based environmental clean-up, and more.

Microbiological Risk Assessment in Food (WHO, Department of Food Safety)

"WHO, in collaboration with other international agencies, is working to advance the role of risk assessment and improve the scientific tools available to conduct microbiological risk assessment of food." This web site includes reports of joint FAO/WHO expert committees.

Principles and guidelines for incorporating microbiological risk assessment in the development of food safety standards, guidelines and related texts. Report of a Joint FAO/WHO Consultation (2002)

Risk Analysis Center

The Risk Analysis Center (UK) aims to contribute to better public understanding of, and ability to evaluate, risk in everyday life. The primary service of this site is an abstracts database of risk-related information. The abstracts are culled from scientific, medical and technical journals, newspapers, and books, papers and technical reports from academic, research and other institutions. The site is free; however, visitors are required to register in order to access the database. Search the database for your topic or browse through pre-defined major risk categories and sub-categories--everything from domestic, occupational, and recreational risks to health, nutrition and environmental risks.

RiskWorld

RiskWorld is a comprehensive Internet resource for risk assessment and risk management information. Their web site includes: News and Press Releases, with an archive of articles, briefs, and summaries going back to 1995; a list of Risk Databases; an Abstracts Library of risk-related journals and proceedings; a Reports and Papers bibliography with links to the full-text of many documents; and an online bookstore. Conferences and calls for papers are announced here, as are job opportunities and professional training events. See their annotated catalog of risk-related websites for additional resources.

Society for Risk Analysis

SRA is an international organization that brings together professionals and organizations in order to facilitate collaboration and information sharing. Their site includes a News section, as well as a Glossary of Risk Analysis Terms.

U S Department of Agriculture, Office of Risk Assessment and Cost Benefit Analysis

"ORACBA's primary role is to ensure that major regulations proposed by USDA are based on sound scientific and economic analysis . . . a thorough analysis that makes clear the nature of the risk, alternative ways of reducing it, the reasoning that justifies the proposed rule, and a comparison of the likely costs and benefits of reducing the risk." The site offers numerous reports, links to other resoruces, and training information.

U S Environmental Protection Agency

National Center for Environmental Assessment

"NCEA serves as the national resource center for the overall process of human health and ecological risk assessments; the integration of hazard, dose-response, and exposure data and models to produce risk characterizations." NCEA produces Risk Assessment Guidelines (cancer, ecological, reproductive toxicity, etc.); Risk Assessments (dioxin, lead, etc.); and Risk Tools and Models.

Superfund National Risk-Based Priority Panel

This site provides "a consistent framework to evaluate and communicate the risks posed by hazardous waste sites". Provides information on the Superfund process, as well as documents on policy and planning, exposure assessment, hazard identification, risk characterization, and risk management. Subject areas include both human health and ecological risk assessment.

Publications and Databases

To search for journal articles on this topic, use the Online Indexes and Databases. To locate journals, use the Melvyl catalog, or the UC-eLinks Electronic Journals Search.

Communicating About Risks to Public Health: Pointers to Good Practice (1997)

This report, from the Department of Health (U.K.), discusses risk communication in light of empirical research on reactions to risk, as well as risk communication as a decision process. Its aim is to "provide pointers to good practice based on well-established research that can be adapted to individual circumstances." Other risk research documents from DOH are available.

Environmental Sciences & Pollution Management Databases (Cambridge Scientific Abstracts)
NOTE: Access limited to UCB faculty, staff and students.

Includes:

Agricultural & Environmental Biotechnology Abstracts. 1993-.

ASFA 3: Aquatic Pollution & Environmental Quality. 1990-.

Bacteriology Abstracts (Microbiology B). 1982-.

Ecology Abstracts. 1982-.

EIS: Digests of Environmental Impact Statements. 1985-.

Environmental Engineering Abstracts. 1990-.

Health & Safety Sciences Abstracts. 1981-.

Industrial & Applied Microbiology Abstracts (Microbiology A). 1982-.

Pollution Abstracts. 1981-.

Risk Abstracts. 1990-.

Toxicology Abstracts. 1981-.

Water Resources Abstracts. 1967-.

Health Risk Communication (National Library of Medicine Current Bibliographies in Medicine no. 2000-7)

This bibliography lists 847 citations from January 1990 to October 2000 which focus primarily on risk communication of scientific information. It is also available in a PDF version.

IRIS (Integrated Risk Information System)

The IRIS is a U.S. EPA database of human health effects that may result from exposure to substances found in the environment.

IRIS from EPA

IRIS from the National Library of Medicine

IRIS from MICROMEDEX
NOTE: Access limited to UC faculty, staff and students.
Please LOG OFF when you are done searching.

Click on ChemKnowledge Free Text Search. Scroll down to select IRIS as your database to search.

ITER - International Toxicity Estimates for Risk

The ITER database "is a compilation of human health risk values for over 600 chemicals of environmental concern from several health organizations worldwide. The database is the only on-line source of compiled risk values that provides side-by-side comparisons of values. All of the data are presented in a tabular format for ease of comparison and the reasons for differences among the organizations' values are explained." Produced by Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment (TERA).

ITER via TERA

ITER from the National Library of Medicine's TOXNET

Risk Assessment Information System (RAIS)

RAIS was designed by the Department of Energy to provide risk assessment tools and information. Among the tools available on this site are: risk-based preliminary remediation goal (PRG) calculations used by risk managers as long-term targets during the analysis and selection of remediation alternatives; databases of toxicity profiles and values; ecological benchmarks to identify chemical concentrations in environmental media that are at or below thresholds for effects to ecological receptors; and a risk assessment glossary. Additional information is available in the form of risk assessment and regulatory guidance documents, current risk management events, and links to related Internet resources. A tutorial on using RAIS is also included.

Risk, Precaution, and Environmental Values (1998)

From the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, this paper looks at studies that have explored the concept of environmental risk, and the related idea of precaution, as they play out in national programs of environmental protection, and outlines the value differences that seem to matter most in governmental strategies for preventing environmental harm.

Science and Judgement in Risk Assessment (National Academies Press, 1994)

This book discusses current approaches to risk assessment, strategies for improving risk assessment, and how to implement these strategies, particularly in terms of the EPA's analysis of pollutants and toxics.

Guides

Precautionary Principle Links from the Science and Environmental Health Network.

Go to Public Health Resources on the Internet

Go to the Public Health Library Home Page

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