Children’s Environmental Health Risk Assessment: Issues and Challenges. B. Sonawane, P. Landrigan, and S. Olin; US Environmental Protection Agency, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, NY, and ILSI Risk Science Institute
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has initiated several regulatory programs and research activities to address a public health goal of providing a safe healthy environment for children. Other Federal efforts focused on children include the continuing drive to reduce blood lead levels, the issuing of the FDA Pediatric Use Rule for drugs administered to children, and the establishment of eight Centers of Excellence in Children’s Environmental Health Research by EPA and DHHS. Several key factors may lead to increased vulnerabilities of children to toxicant exposures. These factors include but are not limited to age-related changes in pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, exposures occurring during critical windows of susceptibility, and age-specific behavioral and dietary patterns. In the pediatric population, developmental changes are better predicted by age than by size, although historically some models based on body size have been used inappropriately. Toxicokinetic age-related changes have not been well differentiated from toxicodynamic changes, especially, in the very young. Elucidating the underlying mechanisms of susceptibility requires knowledge of critical pathways and events of normal development. These and other related factors need to be carefully considered in developing a framework for child-specific risk characterization. To begin to address these issues systematically, a pragmatic framework for assessing risk to children from exposure to environmental agents has been developed as a part of the workshop organized and sponsored by the U.S. EPA, ILSI RSI and several other organizations. The framework, which incorporates problem formulation, analysis and risk characterization as discrete steps in the process, will be discussed.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent views or policies of the organizations with which they are affiliated.
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