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| Web Sites by Topic |
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RiskWorld |
| Internal Web Sites |
| Contact Mary Bryant, RiskWorld staff, e-mail bryant@tec-com.com. |
| American Industrial Hygiene Association |
| Founded in 1939, this professional organization is dedicated to the anticipation, recognition, evaluation, and control of environmental factors arising in or from the workplace that may result in injury, illness, impairment, or affect the well-being of workers and members of the community. The association's web site is an essential source for information on occupational and environmental health and safety issues. AIHA's numerous committees, including its Risk Assessment Committee, plan, develop, and institute many of the association projects, including position statements, continuing education courses, publications, and technical and roundtable sessions presented at various conferences. (Posted September 2000.) |
| http://www.aiha.org/ |
Farm*A*Syst |
| The voluntary program Farm*A*Syst is a partnership between U.S. government agencies and private business that enables individuals to prevent pollution on farms, ranches, and homes using confidential environmental assessments. The web site also includes assessment materials in the Spanish language (en Español). Also see Home*A*Syst. (Posted March 2000.) |
| http://www.uwex.edu/farmasyst/ |
Home*A*Syst |
| Home*A*Syst helps families to identify potential risks to their health and the environment--such as unsafe drinking water, lead paint, and hazardous household products--and to develop an action plan to reduce the risks. This national program, based at the University of Wisconsin and cooperatively supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, also publishes an on-line newsletter titled The Threshold. Also see Farm*A*Syst. (Posted March 2000.) |
| http://www.uwex.edu/homeasyst/ |
| ISEC, Inc. |
| ISEC, Inc., established in 1979 has its main offices in downtown San Francisco, California, U.S.A. It's comprised of three major groups. The Advanced Engineering Technology Group performs analyses and risk assessments. In addition to developing software, the Research and Software Development Group focuses on developing theoretical, numerical and analytical techniques for nonlinear dynamics and risk assessment applications. The Engineering Design Group addresses new design concepts and retrofit design concepts for environmental loads including earthquakes. (Posted September 2000.) |
| http://www.isec.com/ |
National Center for Environmental Assessment |
| NCEA, one of two national centers that are part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Research and Development (ORD), 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. The center occupies a critical position in ORD between (1) the researchers in other ORD components who are generating new findings and data, and (2) the regulators in the EPA program offices and regions who must make regulatory, enforcement, and remedial action decisions. NCEA focuses its work in three major areas: developing methodologies that reduce uncertainties in current approaches, such as dose-response models and factors, exposure models and factors, probabilistic models, and community-based risk assessment; conducting assessments of contaminants and sites of national significance; and providing guidance and support to risk assessors that includes databases, risk assessment guidelines, expert tools, consultation and program support, and risk assessment training. In addition, NCEA coordinates and implements the health and ecological assessment activities of the Risk Assessment Forum staff. (Posted February 2000.) |
| http://www.epa.gov/ncea/ |
Office of Risk
Assessment and Cost-Benefit Analysis
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| The Federal Crop Insurance Reform and Department of Agriculture Reorganization Act of 1994 established ORACBA, which began operation on April 15, 1995. The office's primary role is to ensure that major regulations proposed by USDA--those concerning human, health, safety, or the environment and having an annual economic impact of at least $100 million (1994 dollars)--are based on sound scientific and economic analysis. For such regulations, the Reorganization Act requires USDA to conduct 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 office publishes a quarterly newsletter for risk assessment professionals, ORACBA News, which is available on line. (Posted May 2000.) |
| http://www.usda.gov/agency/oce/oracba/ |
Reporting
on Risk
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| The purpose of this primer is to
give the reporter an understanding of how risk assessment is currently
practiced and publicized. It is intended to enable the journalist to sort
through the numbers and scientific terminology to detect whether they are
getting the whole story and to identify the strengths and weaknesses of a
study. The ultimate goal is to improve public understanding and
decision-making regarding environmental risks. In this handbook, risk
assessment refers to the process of estimating the type and magnitude of
risk to human health posed by exposure to chemical substances; however,
many of the principles of risk assessment described also apply to
measuring other forms of risk. The handbook also includes chapters on
exposure assessment, toxicity assessment, epidemiology, and risk
communication.
The independent, nonprofit institution Foundation for American Communications, which provides the knowledge and resources journalists and their sources need to effectively communicate information to the public through the news, and National Sea Grant College Program, which encourages the wise stewardship of marine resources, produced this handbook. (Posted February 2000.) |
| http://www.facsnet.org/report_tools/guides_primers/risk/ |
Risk Assessment Consultants in RiskWorld |
| RiskWorld provides a growing list of risk assessment consulting firms with links to their webs. (Posted March 2000.) |
| http://www.riskworld.com/websites/webfiles/ws00a004.htm#RiskAssessment |
Risk Assessment in the Superfund Program |
| Risk assessors and risk assessment data play an important role in the characterization and cleanup of Superfund sites. This site provides information about how risk data is used at each step in the Superfund process and publishes guidance/policy documents on line. (Posted January 2000.) |
| http://www.epa.gov/superfund/programs/risk/ |
Risk Assessment Information System (RAIS) |
| RAIS contains risk assessment tools and information that include risk-based preliminary remediation goal (PRG) calculations, a toxicity data base, risk calculations, and ecological benchmarks. The tools are designed for use at all U.S. Department of Energy sites and can be customized for site-specific conditions. RAIS also includes information, guidance, and risk results applicable to the Oak Ridge, Tennessee, reservation. This work has been sponsored by the DOE Office of Environmental Management, Oak Ridge Operations Office through a contract with Bechtel Jacobs Company LLC. (Posted January 2000, updated March 2000.) |
| http://risk.lsd.ornl.gov/rap_hp.shtml |
RiskWatch Inc. |
| RiskWatch Inc., a leading risk assessment software company since 1990, provides quantitative risk analysis software that produces accurate results for better decision making on security measures. Based in Annapolis, Maryland, with a sales and engineering office in San Jose, California, its clients include U.S. federal agencies and departments, states, and corporations. The software is available in versions for information systems, for physical security, for school security, and for security planning. (Posted March 2000.) |
| http://www.riskwatch.com/ |
Society of Toxicology's
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The Society of Toxicology's council established the Task Force to Improve the Scientific Basis of Risk Assessment in January 1996 and charged it with tackling the following objectives over a three-year period: 1) stimulate efforts to improve the use of scientific data as the basis for risk assessment, 2) impact the generation of data appropriate for risk assessment, 3) promote the development, validation, and use of better testing and risk assessment methods, and 4) seek to facilitate acceptance of new science and methods by regulatory agencies. The task force initiated and helped developed a fact sheet titled Risk Assessment: What's It All About?, which was approved by the SOT council in November 1999. The task force's strategic plan for 1999-2002 is focusing on stimulating mechanistic research and promoting its integration into risk assessment to facilitate regulatory advancement. (Posted March 2000.) |
| http://www.toxicology.org/aboutSOT/about-ratf.html |
Soil Screening Calculations |
| The U.S. EPA's Soil Screening Guidance provides a simple step-by-step methodology for environmental science/engineering professionals to calculate risk-based, site-specific soil screening levels (SSLs) for contaminants in soil that may be used to identify areas needing further investigation at Superfund National Priorities List sites. The Soil Screening Calculations web site, which is maintained by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Toxicology and Risk Analysis Section and is sponsored by the U.S. EPA's Office of Emergency and Remedial Response, includes more chemicals than the published Soil Screening Guidance and also an alternate equation for "Ingestion of Carcinogenic Contaminants in Soil" to account for those situations where a child is not a likely receptor. These have been added to make the tool as comprehensive as possible. (Posted January 2000.) |
| http://risk.lsd.ornl.gov/calc_start.htm |
Soil Screening Guidance |
| The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has developed the tool Soil Screening Guidance to help standardize and accelerate the evaluation and cleanup of contaminated soils at sites where future residential land use is anticipated on the National Priorities List (NPL) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), commonly known as Superfund. Soil Screening Guidance is available on line in three portable document formatted (PDF) documents: (1) a Quick Reference Fact Sheet, which provides an overview of the development and use of soil screening levels (SSLs); (2) a User's Guide, which provides details for implementing a simple methodology for calculating site-specific SSLs; and (3) a Technical Background Document (TBD), which presents generic SSLs and the technical foundation for the methodology for establishing SSLs. (Posted January 2000.) |
| http://www.epa.gov/superfund/resources/soil/index.htm |
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