Credible Science for Decisions: The Design and Experience of the Health Effects Institute. Daniel S. Greenbaum, President, Health Effects Institute, 141 Portland Street, Suite 7300, Cambridge, MA 02139
The Health Effects Institute(HEI) is an independent, nonprofit organization chartered in 1980 to provide decision makers with high-quality, impartial and relevant science to help answer key questions on the health effects of pollutants from motor vehicles and other sources in the environment. HEI was founded out of a controversy between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the manufacturers and marketers of motor vehicles and engines in the United States, with agreement from both sides that instead of expending large sums independently to research health effects, they would jointly fund an independent third party to conduct credible research and intensive review in order to provide "friendly facts" upon which both sides could draw to inform their decisions. HEI has provided important research on a number of motor-vehicle-related air pollutants, including carbon monoxide, ozone, toxic air pollutants, and diesel exhaust. It has been funded, as well, by other industrial and government sponsors to address the health effects of asbestos and, to a lesser extent, electric and magnetic fields. This presentation will summarize the structure and performance of HEI and its strengths and weaknesses. It will focus on two case studies: the Institute's long-term program to understand the carcinogenicity of diesel exhaust, and HEI's current project to reanalyze key epidemiologic data on the mortality effects of particulate air pollution.