Pre-conference Symposium

Risk Assessment Symposium — Converging Risk Analysis, Management, and Perception

Thursday, November 3–Friday, November 4
8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. Reception immediately following the Thursday program.

2.67 IH CM points/1.6 CEU/COC points
Fees: Through 10/7: $750 Member/ $825 Nonmember;
After 10/7: $825 Member/ $925 Nonmember

Symposium includes electronic handout; internet is not available in the meeting room.

Risk assessment and mitigation are all the rage in the field of industrial hygiene, public health and environmental engineering. Aligning the language of hazard and risk are global initiatives; REACH and GHS are turning longstanding programs on their heads. Where are the risk trajectories taking our profession? What is the purpose of the risk assessment? How do we prioritize risk rankings and create ROI that benefits the worker, public, environment and shareholders? Risk assessment and the resulting decision making include outcome, costs and benefits on a global scale. Understanding and responding to varying perceptions of risk in the natural and built environments involves the assessment of hazards, exposure and the characterization of the resulting risk.

Risk assessment is a systematic approach to organize and analyze scientific and human behavior information. Risk management is the decision-making process used to establish policies and implement risk reduction and educational programs. The cost-benefit trade-offs and social impact of a risk management policy are all key components. Effective risk communication carefully considers the target audience and the issues of biases, heuristics and cognitive models for decision making. While effective risk communication may not ensure acceptance by all stakeholders, poor risk communication will almost certainly ensure disagreement and outrage. Participants in this symposium will leave with a combination of global and local perspectives on important drivers to risk assessment, risk management and risk communication and how to make a greater impact in solving complex problems.

Thursday, November 3

• 7:30 a.m.–8:00 a.m. Registration
• 8:00 a.m.–8:15 a.m. Welcome and Introductions
  Fred Boelter, CIH, PE, BCEE, ENVIRON, Chicago, IL
• 8:15 a.m.–9:05 a.m. Keynote Address: Where Is the Risk Trajectory Pointed?
  John Howard, MD, MPH, JD, NIOSH, Washington, DC
  The OSHA Act of 1970, combined with Presidential Executive Orders and Supreme Court decisions from 1980 through 2011, established a cumbersome framework for establishing and updating permissible exposure limits. In practice, professional industrial hygienists have turned to various risk management approaches based on risk assessment, both quantitative and qualitative and structured analytical approaches such as control banding to manage those risks. This talk will explore government and non-governmental standards setting approaches to risk assessment and control.
• 9:05 a.m. –9:15 a.m. Theme A: The Past into the Present
  Charles Redinger, PhD, MPA, CIH Redinger EHS, Inc., Harvard, MA
• 9:15 a.m.–10:00 a.m. Evolution of Modern Risk Analysis - NAS Red to Silver Book
  Joseph Rodricks, PhD, DABT, ENVIRON, Arlington, VA
  • A 2009 report from the National Academy of Sciences (Science and Decisions: Advancing Risk Assessment) illuminates the trajectory risk assessment has followed since the seminal 1983 Academy report Risk Assessment in the Federal Government: Managing the Process. The 2009 report also provides clarity with respect to the path risk assessment must now follow to enhance its role in decisions to protect human health. The hurdles that must be overcome for risk assessment to achieve its full potential, as set forth by the NAS committee, are the focus of this presentation.
• 10:00 a.m.–10:20 a.m. Break
• 10:20 a.m.–11:00 a.m. Risk Mapping: Beginning with the End in Mind
  Mark W. Wood, Eli Lilly
  • For many years, the pharmaceutical industry has had well-established risk assessment and management paradigms for industrial hygiene. These methods have centered on the establishment of occupational exposure limits from available toxicological and clinical data sets, along with the use of control banding. In recent years, companies' quality and industrial hygiene organizations have been developing guidance on cross contamination risk assessment and control. This presentation will provide a practical example of the use of these risk assessment/management processes balancing the critical needs of both industrial hygiene and quality.
• 11:00 a.m.–11:50 a.m. Exposure Assessment: Facts We Know for Certain May Not Be Correct
  Mark Stenzel, CIH, EAA, LLC, Arlington, VA
  • This presentation will outline the application of the AIHA exposure/risk assessment model, use of the health hazard exposure matrix and its link to exposure control, risk management and risk communication practices. It will identify and illustrate common exposure assessment misconceptions that lead to unreliable conclusions related to exposures and present techniques that can be used to improve the reliability of exposure assessment conclusions.
• 11:50 a.m.–Noon Wrap Up
  Charles Redinger, PhD, MPA, CIH, Redinger EHS, Inc., Harvard, MA
• Noon–1:30 p.m. Lunch (on own)
• 1:30 p.m.–1:40 p.m. Theme B: A Process, Not a Cookbook
  Fred Boelter, CIH, PE, BCEE, ENVIRON, Chicago, IL
• 1: 40 p.m.–2:20 p.m. Nanoparticles: Applying Risk Assessment to the Uncertain
  Chuck Geraci, PhD, CIH, NIOSH, Cincinnati, OH
  • This presentation will provide guidance to the practicing Industrial Hygienist on how risk management principles can be applied in an environment of incomplete data. Engineered Nanomaterials will be used as a case study to describe the approach that can be used to protect worker health while a ”new class” of materials continues to move higher-volume commercial applications.
• 2:20 p.m.–3:00 p.m. Cumulative/Aggregate Risk: How Does This Relate to IH?
  George Gray, PhD, George Washington University, Washington, DC
  • Encouraged by the technical community, the National Academy of Sciences, Congress and other stakeholders, federal agencies are exploring ways to assess the effects of multiple stressors on human health outcomes.  This presentation will detail some of the suggested approaches, highlight specific examples, and look at what cumulative risk assessment may mean for regulatory decisions in the future.
• 3:00 p.m.–3:20 p.m. Break
• 3:20 p.m.–4:10 p.m. The Global Approach–Should We Look East or West?
  Zack Mansdorf, PhD, CIH, CSP, QEP, Sustainability Consultants, Boca Raton, FL
  • Risk assessment has been the cornerstone of EHS legislation for the European Union for quite some time. In many of the European Union countries, annual risk assessments are mandatory for all workers (including office workers). They have also recently established a “European Risk Observatory”. Further in their community strategy for health and safety at work (2007-2012) have emphasized risk assessment approaches (e.g., finalizing the methods to identify and evaluate new potential risks). What can we learn from them in our approaches?
• 4:10 p.m.–5:00 p.m. Integrating Costs into Risk Assessment
  Cristina McLaughlin, FDA, College Park, MD
  • Formulating policies aimed at reducing public health risks can be complicated because decision makers are not only confronted with uncertainty when evaluating their decisions but need to balance the interests of different stakeholders affected by their decisions as well.  Although risk assessments are sometimes used in conjunction with analyses to help risk managers evaluate their decisions, the two approaches are not always combined. Integrating both analyses can  provide decision makers with better information when evaluating policy options that affect public or occupational health and safety and thus lead to optimal policy decisions. 
• 5:00 p.m.–5:15 p.m. Wrap Up
  Fred Boelter, CIH, PE, BCEE, ENVIRON, Chicago, IL
• 5:15 p.m.–6:30 p.m. Reception
  Hosted by AIHA Risk Assessment Committee

Friday, November 4

• 8:00 a.m.–8:10 a.m. Bridge Between Day One and Two
  Fred Boelter, CIH, PE, BCEE, ENVIRON, Chicago, IL
• 8:10 a.m.–8:30 a.m. Theme C: Human Risks Involve Humans
  Perceptions & Reality
  Mary O’Reilly, PhD, CIH, CPE, ARLS Consultants, Syracuse, NY
  • Individuals identify risk based on their internal processing of external stimuli. Learned expectations strongly influence how individuals process external stimuli. With the advent of non-invasive neurophysiological techniques, the cognitive pathways underpinning perception have begun to be mapped. The physiological basis of risk perception has also provided crucial insights into risk assessment, communication and management.
• 8:30 a.m.–9:00 a.m. The Science of Perception Research
  Pamela Dalton, PhD, MPH, Monell Center, Philadelphia, PA
  • Understanding risk perception often requires a thorough analysis of the human response to an external or internal sensory stimulus. Inter- and intra-individual variations in perceptual experience can be due to differences in perceptual sensitivity, past exposures, situational context and even emotional state. Historical methods in perception research (e.g., psychophysics) and more recent advances (e.g., neuroimaging) applied in tandem can be used to provide a more comprehensive picture of the human perceptual response.
• 9:00 a.m.–9:40 a.m. Exposure Risk Assessors – Heuristics & Biases
  Perry Logan, MS, CIH, 3M Company, St. Paul, MN
  • "Professional judgment is commonly used by exposure risk assessors to determine the acceptability of exposures and to manage exposure control programs.  Studies on professional judgment and its associated biases cover a wide range of fields, including psychology, economics, medicine and engineering and indicate that humans use simple cognitive rules rather than extensive algorithms when making judgments.  These simple cognitive rules common to human judgments have been called “heuristics” and have inherent biases associated with them that show up in studies across many fields.  This presentation will illustrate some of the heuristics and biases that can impact exposure risk assessment."
• 9:40 a.m.–10:00 a.m. Human Cognitive Models and Decision Making
  Pamela Dalton, PhD, MPH, Monell Center, Philadelphia, PA
  • Information-processing models based on cognitive-perceptual principles have focused attention on the role that psychological factors and situational determinants play in the process of risk perception. An information-processing model incorporates the primary assumption that the perception and appraisal of a risk represents the active processing and transformation of the sensory and physiological signals that are elicited by the exposure, coupled with pre-existing beliefs, attitudes and expectancies. Using examples from the laboratory and everyday life, this presentation will illustrate the role these factors play in appraisals of chemical exposure risks.
• 10:00 a.m.–10:15 a.m. Break
• 10:15 a.m.–11:00 a.m. Organizational Culture – Understanding & Influencing
  Alister Scott, FRCP, FFOM, MBA, Johnson Matthey, UK
  • Understanding how things get done and how leaders behave in organizations is key to implementing risk management programs effectively. Drawing on experience gained from operating globally in multinational organizations, this session will highlight practical examples where an understanding of leadership and cultural factors and the use of simple tools to identify and harness these issues has helped manage corporate health and safety risks.
• 11:00 a.m.–11:30 a.m. Practical Methods and Tools for Managing Biases
  Moderators: Mary O’Reilly, Perry Logan, Pamela Dalton
• 11:30 a.m.–Noon Discussion: Putting Humans into Risk Identification/Control/ Communication
  Moderator: Mark Finn, CIH, ENVIRON, Chicago, IL
  • Mark will facilitate a roundtable discussion of key information from the morning sessions and engage the audience in sharing how this information can be applied to their various work situations and challenges.
• Noon–1:30 p.m. Lunch (on own)
• 1:30 p.m.–1:40 p.m. Theme D: The Future Is Now
  Scott Dotson, PhD, CIH, NIOSH, Cincinnati, OH
• 1:40 p.m.–2:15 p.m. REACH/TSCA Reform: Influencing Risk Assessment
  Susan Ripple, MS, CIH, Dow, Midland, MI
  • The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a series of guiding principles for TSCA reform and modernization in the pending legislation to bring TSCA up to date. Industry generally welcomed that set of principles primarily because they are a risk-based, science-based approach that has been the underlying basis for TSCA since its beginning in 1976. That underlying concept is in contrast to the REACH program's algorithm-based precautionary principle, much opposed by US chemicals producers.  The unknowns for the TSCA reform include the potential to introduce REACH-like elements, such as incorporating the concept of “inherently safe technologies” (IST), which would essentially ban some products from use or sale and drive a transformed risk assessment strategy in the USA.  A comparison of the current and proposed TSCA risk assessment strategies will be discussed contrasted to REACH principles.
• 2:15 p.m.–2:55 p.m. Chemical Characterization and Banding to Supplement Authoritative OELs
  Donna Heidel, CIH, NIOSH, Cincinnati, OH
  • The majority of chemical substances in commerce have no established occupational exposure limits (OELs). In the absence of established OELs, employers and workers often lack the necessary guidance on the extent to which occupational exposures should be controlled. It also prevents industrial hygienists from applying prevention through design approaches to chemical hazards. Qualitative and semi-quantitative approaches to assessing and managing exposures have evolved to ensure worker protection and inform best practices. Hazard banding, or the categorization of chemicals according to their toxicological characteristics, will provide guidance in determining safe handling and control of new or incompletely characterized substances. This session will describe the concepts of hazard banding, a practical risk management approach using toxicological data to perform a qualitative risk assessment and determine appropriate control solutions.
• 2:55 p.m.–3:15 p.m. Break
• 3:15 p.m.–3:55 p.m. Exposure Modeling, Toxic Effects Modeling and OELs in the 21st Century
  Mike Jayjock, PhD, CIH, Lifeline, Langhorne, PA
  • As a description: This talk will cover an overview of human exposure and toxic effects modeling.  It will discuss the meaning of OELs as they relate to practical realities in industrial hygiene risk assessment.   Particular emphasis will be placed on the inevitable advance of developing and using risk-based OELs as a means of providing true quantitative risk assessment.
• 3:55 p.m.–4:30 p.m. Integrating Occupational and Non-Occupational Exposures to Multiple Agents
  Andy Maier, PhD, CIH, DABT, TERA, Cincinnati, OH
  • The role of industrial hygiene continues to expand to more fully encompass a complex view of total chemical exposure and risk, moving beyond traditional single-chemical workplace exposure evaluations. Methods and approaches for assessing chemical mixtures health risks and for integrating health effects assessments from multiple sources of exposure are highlighted.
• 4:30 p.m.–4:50 p.m. Panel Discussion
  Moderator: Scott Dotson, NIOSH, Cincinnati, OH
• 4:50 p.m.–5:00 p.m. Closing Comments
  Fred Boelter, CIH, PE, BCEE, ENVIRON, Chicago, IL