title: Evaluating the risk decision process.
abstract: In order to ensure that risk assessment and risk management serve their purposes efficiently, it is essential to systematically evaluate actual practices. In this overview, it is proposed that such evaluation studies constitute an important field of study that should be recognized as a sub-discipline of regulatory toxicology with its own research issues and its own methodologies. Previous such evaluation studies are summarized. Methods are described that can be used for comparing different risk assessments of one of the same substance, for checking the consistency of harmonized classifications with the available data, for assessing the actual margin of safety (i.e. size of uncertainty factors) in exposure limits, and for comparing different lists of exposure limits. In conclusion, some important problem areas for future evaluation studies are pointed out.
authors.affiliation: Department of Philosophy and the History of Technology, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Teknikringen 78 B 2tr, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden. soh@infra.kth.se
authors.forename: Sven Ove
authors.initials: SO
authors.lastname: Hansson
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rudén
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003657:Decision Making; D033161:Government Regulation; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D015386:Hazardous Substances / Q000145:classification*; D006801:Humans; D016273:Occupational Exposure / Q000145:classification*; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods; D020711:Threshold Limit Values; D023382:Toxicity Tests, Acute
chemical_list: D015386:Hazardous Substances