ART-TNO: Phase 1: mechanistic model and Bayesian update

Description

Under REACH, the new chemicals policy in Europe, exposure scenarios form an essential basis for chemical risk assessment reports to show that chemicals can be used safely. This requires a tiered exposure assessment approach in which the first Tier is given by a conservative system and subsequent Tier(s) providing more refined exposure modelling for scenarios of concern. A case by case in-depth assessment requiring additional exposure measurements for each scenario of concern would be an extremely expensive process. Hence, a generic exposure assessment tool generating scientifically justified and realistic exposure estimates would significantly increase cost-effectiveness of REACH.

Currently, such a model is lacking under REACH and this project aims at the development of an advanced exposure assessment model to close this gap. A more robust and reliable way forward was indicated (Creely et al., 2005), making full use of mechanistically modelled estimates of exposure and any relevant measurements of exposure. The proposed approach follows a Bayesian statistical framework to integrate sources of information (Tielemans et al., 2007).