Cumulative Health Risk Assessment

Dear Colleagues,

Risk assessment is a valuable tool for organizing and analyzing relevant scientific information to characterize and possibly quantify the adverse effects on human health from exposure to environmental hazards.  Historically, health risk assessments have been conducted primarily for regulatory purposes, and have therefore tended to focus narrowly on single chemicals or chemical classes, often emphasizing a specific health endpoint and a particular exposure pathway or route for a hypothetical population.  But it is obvious that people living in the real world are routinely exposed to a myriad of chemical and nonchemical stressors during the course of their everyday lives.  Spurred by documented health disparities, strong presumptive evidence of disproportionate risk burdens for those living in poverty, and increasing dissatisfaction with the “narrowness” of conventional risk assessments, efforts are currently underway in Europe and the United States to develop methods and procedures for evaluating combined threats from multiple environmental stressors.  This special issue will highlight the new approaches, models, and theories that either have been applied or are under development to assess cumulative health risks from exposure to diverse hazards in the environment.  Research papers, analytical reviews, case studies, conceptual frameworks, and policy-relevant articles are solicited.

Prof. Dr. Ken Sexton
Guest Editor