Comparison of Methods for Estimating Human Exposure Risk to a Variety of Airborne Emission Sources. P. R. Mayes, L. F. McGrath, and P. G. Georgopoulos, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, Piscataway, NJ
U.S.EPA in their Guidance on Cumulative Risk Assessment (1997) has recommended that risk assessments take a broader scope and include methods that include multiple sources, effects, pathways, stressors and populations. Current risk assessment methods rely on an approach that looks at exposures from the release of a single contaminant from a single source. This approach overlooks the potential health impacts that multiple contaminants from multiple sources may have on communities. In recent years there have been improvements in data and methods used for risk assessment analyses that make an assessment of the cumulative impact of multiple environmental stressors feasible. This paper evaluates facility-wide and multiple-facility emissions as they pertain to the process of integrating risks from multiple sources and then tests the ability of various air quality dispersion models to provide predicted concentrations for an exposure assessment at a variety of communities. Emissions of multiple chemicals from multiple sources in controlled groupings of facilities were used in a number of instances. The air quality models used represent different levels of complexity and sophistication. This comparison considered the different input and data needs of each model. We recognize that to identify the minimum level of complexity needed within the input data is of high importance to the process of evaluating risk assessment techniques. This paper attempts to judge the relative improvements gained through the use of more sophisticated models with their attendant levels of increased complexity and to identify how much detail is adequate.
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