What To Do at Low Doses: A Bounding Approach for Economic Analysis. D. Axelrad, C. Dockins, C. Griffiths, N. Owens, and N. Simon, US EPA
In order to provide decision makers with information on the health benefits of policies to reduce human exposure to pollutants, economists generally require estimates of the number of cases of illness reduced. For policies to reduce exposure to carcinogenic substances, these estimates have traditionally been obtained through the linear extrapolation of experimental dose-response data to low exposure scenarios as described in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Guidelines for Carcinogen Risk Assessment (1986). In response to evolving scientific knowledge, EPA proposed revisions to the guidelines in 1996. Among other things, the revised guidelines would allow for a non-linear specification of dose-response relationships for some carcinogens. As proposed, the non-linear approach is likely to have serious consequences for how benefit-cost analyses of policies aimed at reducing cancer risks are conducted, because it does not provide for estimation of a quantitative dose-response relationship. Our paper examines the changes proposed in the new guidelines and their implications for benefit-cost analysis of carcinogenic exposures. We also detail an approach that extrapolates from experimental data to bound the dose-response relationship at low doses. This approach takes into account non-linearities in the dose-response function, while still providing economists with the type of information necessary to assess the economic benefits of risk-reducing policies. To illustrate the approach, we apply our methodology in short case studies.
Go to . . .
2000 SRA Annual Meeting Table of Contents
2000 SRA Annual Meeting Author Index
Main Abstracts Menu Page
RiskWorld Home Page