Who should attend?
Risk assessors and toxicologists who conduct and write chemical assessments
Risk assessors and toxicologists who review chemical assessments
Risk managers or policymakers who use the results of chemical assessments and want to fully understand the processes involved in risk value development
Participant requirements
A basic understanding of toxicology
An interest in developing their skills in human health risk assessment
What you will learn
1. Non-cancer and Cancer Risk Assessment Principles and Methods: Learn how to critically analyze effect data, understand toxicokinetic data and their use in understanding mode of action (MOA) and developing risk values. Learn how to incorporate uncertainty factors, utilize frameworks for considering MOA and human relevance, and learn information synthesis approaches for hazard characterization and critical study identification, and calculation of risk values for non-cancer (e.g., reference doses or tolerable intakes) and cancer endpoints (e.g., cancer slope factors). Learn the latest methodologies used in dose-response assessment.
2. Dosimetric Adjustment Methods in Dose Response: Learn how to develop interspecies oral dose adjustments for non-cancer and cancer assessment, cancer unit risk or slope factor conversion, inhalation exposure concentration unit conversion, and human equivalent concentration (HEC) calculation for particle and vapor exposure using various modeling approaches. Applications of the results of physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modeling will also be introduced.
3. Benchmark Dose (BMD) Modeling and Application in Risk Assessment: Learn how to do BMD modeling for non-cancer and cancer dose-response assessments and get hands-on experience using the latest EPA software. Learn how to appropriately apply BMD modeling, choose models and parameters, select data and run models, and select the appropriate BMD as a point of departure in a human health risk assessment. The course addresses all of the models in the EPA software, including dichotomous continuous, cancer, and nested models.
4. Principles for the Application of Uncertainty Factors and Chemical Specific Adjustment Factor (CSAF) Methodology: Learn the concept of uncertainty factors and how they are used in non-cancer risk and safety assessment by USEPA and other organizations, and how data are used to support values other than defaults. Learn how to develop and use CSAFs according to the methods of the International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS), which includes the use of mechanistic and toxicokinetic data to replace default uncertainty factors for interspecies extrapolation and intraspecies variability in deriving risk values such as RfDs and Tolerable Concentrations (TCs).
5. Comprehensive Risk Assessment Practice: Learn to develop, present and review a comprehensive non-cancer and cancer assessment for a complex sample chemical over the course of the entire week.
TERA updates training materials before each course. Materials are then submitted to SOT and SRA for review as endorsements are provided on an individual course basis.