ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the general subject of toxicology and its companion topic, dose–response. Dose–response assessment is the process of characterizing the relationship between the dose of an agent administered or received and the incidence of an adverse health effect in exposed populations. This process considers such important factors as intensity of exposure, age pattern of exposure, and other variables that might modify the response, such as sex and lifestyle. Toxicology is the science of poisons, that is, the study of chemical or physical agents that produce adverse responses in biological systems. Together with other scientific disciplines, toxicology can be used to determine the relationship between an agent of interest and a group of people or a community. Epidemiology is a discipline within the health sciences that deals with the study of the occurrence of disease in human populations.
