ABSTRACT
Environmental health deals with the identification and control of chemical and physical agents that cause disease or disability. A basic approach used in the field of environmental health is the reduction of exposures, by regulatory controls, to levels that either produce no toxicant effects or produce effects at acceptable levels of risk. The field of health risk assessment began in the US Environmental Protection Agency in the mid-1970s with an initial focus on environmental chemical and physical carcinogens. The chapter focuses on statistical insignificance and explores the use of statistical insignificance in two ways: as an alternative to the use of de minimis risk-based standards in which the regulation of carcinogens is dealt with as one component of a program to reduce the public health burden of cancer from all controllable causes of cancer. The second application is a reinterpretation of the 10-6de minimis standard in terms of insignificance.
