Difference between revisions of "Selected exposures and health effects"

Revision as of 09:42, 6 June 2011

Selected exposures and health effects

This chapter presents, for each stressor, the health effects included in our analyses, exposure response functions that were used and the exposure data. Table 3-19 presents an overview of the selected environmental stressors, health endpoints, exposure-response functions and methods used. An overview of exposure data used for each stressor is given in Table 3-20.

1 Selection criteria

1.1 Environmental stressors

We aimed to study the burden of disease in the general population associated with stressors in the physical environment. Occupational hazards and risks associated with lifestyles (e.g. alcohol use, active smoking, nutrition), as well as infectious diseases, were excluded from the assessment.

Four criteria were defined for selection of environmental stressors to be included in the study:

• Public health impact;

• High individual risk;

• High political or public concern;

• Economic significance.

In addition, the selection was affected by the feasibility of the calculation. Therefore, we also considered:

• availability of exposure data

• availability of evidence-based exposure response function(s)

• availability of baseline health statistics.

Discussion among environmental health experts as represented in the EBoDE working group selected the environmental stressors based on these selection criteria. A first list of stressors was divided into two parts:

• a high priority list of stressors, which either scored high on many of the criteria and/or which were relatively easy to calculate

• a medium priority list of stressors.