ABSTRACT
The discipline of environmental epidemiology connects risk assessment practice with pure scientific research. Epidemiology has little direct relationship to conducting a risk assessment. Very few projects require a full scale epidemiological study. Even so, project managers should understand how epidemiological studies affect the risk assessment process. Technical comparisons of epidemiological data and animal bioassay results may play an important part in certain projects. Epidemiological studies can be used to set toxicity values (i.e., cancer potency slopes or reference doses) or to classify a carcinogen. Also an epidemiologist’s perspective may also be required in certain risk assessment projects. A key project management decision is whether to include an epidemiologist in a project team.
