National Academies workshops to support EPA development of human health assessment
At the request of EPA, an ad hoc planning committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine organized two workshops on topics pertinent to their assessment of human health effects. The workshops were designed to assist EPA with increasing the quality, transparency, and confidence in its chemical assessments by addressing scientific issues related to systematic review, hazard identification, and dose-response analysis. Scientists from NCI and NIEHS served on the committee. Topics included:
- Evaluating elements of the systematic review process (e.g., development and application of specialized tools, methods for evaluating mechanistic data).
- Hazard identification approaches (e.g., techniques for integrating evidence).
- Incorporating NAMs for testing chemicals into chemical assessments.
- Research on quantitative analyses for evidence integration and dose-response analyses.
The first workshop, “Triangulation of Evidence in Environmental Epidemiology,” considered approaches to integrating results from a variety of data streams to inform and strengthen causal inferences. The second workshop, “Artificial Intelligence and Open Data Practices in Chemical Hazard Assessment,” focused on approaches to automating and streamlining data extraction and evidence synthesis for systematic reviews. Videos of the workshops and meeting materials are available on each of the meeting webpages.