Environmental health risk assessment ‐ current status, challenges, and future needs
INSPIRE Conference, Aalborg Tuesday 17th June, 2014 Presented by Dr. Hai-Ying Liu
Hai-Ying Liu,
[email protected] Alena Bartonova,
[email protected]
Presentation outline Environmental health risk assessment What is an environmental health risk assessment? Types of environmental health risk assessment and
Environmental health risk assessment toolbox What is an environmental health risk assessment toolbox? What data does the environmental health risk assessment toolbox require? Examples of environmental health risk assessment toolbox
Challenges and way forward Challenges Future direction and data acquisition
Two EU-founded projects (CITI-SENSE and Citi-Sense-MOB) Conclusions
Environmental health risk assessment – What is an environmental heath risk assessment? An environmental health risk assessment is the process of estimating the potential impact of a chemical, physical, microbiological or psychosocial hazard on a specified human population under a specific set of conditions and for a certain time frame (Source: http://www.health.gov.au, 2012).
– Types of environmental health risk assessment Individual risk assessment Population risk assessment Qualitative risk assessment Quantitative risk assessment
Environmental health risk assessment – Five key steps of environmental health risk assessment (Source: enHEALTH, Environmental health risk assessment: Guidelines for assessing human health risks from environmental hazards)
– It is a multidisciplinary field
Environmental health risk assessment toolbox – Environmental health risk assessment toolbox and the role of such toolbox? An environmental health risk assessment toolbox is any guidance, procedure, or analysis tool that can be used to support the environmental health risk assessment process, and to assist decision‐makers in making informed decisions (EU FP6 HENVINET project, Liu et al., 2012).
Environmental health risk assessment toolbox – What data/information does the environmental health risk assessment toolbox require? Environmental, exposure/dose, effects and impacts Data on the nature and extent of contamination Fate and transport processes The magnitude and frequency of human exposure The inherent toxicity of all of the chemicals
Contextual or background data Geographic data, such as: administrative areas, topography Population and demography, such as: population numbers or density, age and gender, socio‐economic status Background health status, such as: mortality rates, morbidity
Environmental health risk assessment toolbox – Examples of environmental health risk assessment toolbox EU FP6 projects: INTARESE, HEIMTSA, ENVIRISK, HENVINET EU FP7 project: TRANPHORM To provide toolbox that people can use to assess the environmental and health risks and consequences of different policies.
(Source: http://www.integrated‐assessment.eu, 2014)
Environmental health risk assessment toolbox
(Source: http://www.integrated‐assessment.eu, 2014)
Challenges and the way forward – Challenges Current data from E&H monitoring programmes face many challenges Fragmentation of datasets and sources Lack of harmonization between datasets at different geographical scales Issues of data quality and accuracy
In practice, to access data presents a number of challenges Obtaining data from other agencies is difficult, and in many cases impossible Legal and the level of ethical restrictions prevent access to a particular dataset Difficult to obtain the cooperation of agency hierarchy, who decide whether or not to participate in data sharing Data sharing requires compatibility between different computer systems as well as the availability of information system personnel
Challenges and the way forward Challenges on data integration Data integration requires the cooperation of system administrators, directors of programmes, and services consumers Data integration is costly and time consuming, and information overload are also barriers to data integration across multiple organizations Understand pedigree of the data and their properties
Technical challenges concerning data analysis Different data format Increases in data volume Increasing need for interdisciplinary use of data Integration of data among systems to answer questions that address diverse societal benefits
Challenges and the way forward – Future direction on E&H monitoring Approaches to integrated monitoring for environmental health risk assessment (EU FP6 INTARESE project)
(Source: Liu et al., 2012, http://www.ehjournal.net/content/pdf/1476‐069X‐11‐88.pdf)
Challenges and the way forward –
Future direction on integration of environmental health data from existing programmes:
Step 0: define the goal of data integration.
Step 1: make the integrated plan.
Step 2: collect individual data.
Step 3: analyse the individual data.
Step 4: integrate the data and analyse the integrated data.
Step 5: report results.
Step 6: recommend new actions.
Challenges and the way forward – Future data acquisition Citizen science and citizens’ observatories in E&H fields (EU FP7 CITI‐SENESE and Citi‐Sense‐MOB projects, Bartonova et al., 2012‐2016, Castell et al., 2013‐2015) Change citizens’ role from passive information receiver to active participant Two‐way communication model Location information
Innovative low‐cost sensors and Information and ICT enable citizens to participate in the environmental monitoring Increase data coverage Time resolution Spatial resolution
Challenges and the way forward Higher
Ambient air monitoring network and compliance p
€€€
Supplement Air Monitoring Network
Relative Cost
Relative Required Data Quality
What data quality do we need?
Community based monitoring and Screeningg Education and Qualitative monitoring €
Lower
Relative Deployment Density (Source: Snyder et al. Env. Sci. Tech. 2013)
Two EU‐funded projects CITI‐SENSE (EU FP7) and Citi‐Sense‐MOB (EU EMMIA/DG Enterprise) Vision Important problems:
Opportunities and challenges:
Quality of life in cities (indoor and outdoor) Health effects from traffic pollution
Small, low‐cost sensors Information and Communication Technology
Decreasing air pollution Increasing quality of life
Participatory Urbanism Citizens’ participation and empowerment
Few air quality monitoring stations No real‐time data where people are Absence of personalized data
Increased spatial coverage Complementary air quality data Near real‐time personalized data
(Source: Nuria Castell,
[email protected])
How are we going to do it? Sensor platform NOx, CO, O3, PM, RH, T
Public & Private Sectors
Data Services Processing raw data, fusion, modelling
User services
GNSS Cloud services Data storage
COT Data providers
Citizens Special Interest Groups
AQ Models
VGI
Citizen Participation Participatory Governance through Social Media
Traffic situation (Source: Nuria Castell,
[email protected])
GEOSS compatibility – Making data we collect in CITI‐SENSE and Citi‐Sense‐MOB GEOSS compatible Collaboration with other FP7 funded citizens’ observatories related projects
Data access Data sharing Data registration Share experiences, competencies
Conclusions Technical challenges to connect disparate data sources Content challenges, e.g., provide enough information to serve given purpose Users communities will have different needs and requirements (e.g., public x authorities x research) Benchmarks and examples help to define the solutions
Thank you for your attention! – Find us on CITI‐SENSE Project web portal: www.citi‐sense.eu Citi‐Sense‐MOB web portal: www.citi‐sense‐mob.eu Citizens’ observatories central web protal: www.co.citi‐sense.eu Facebook: www.facebook.com/int.cit.obs LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/groups/Citizens‐observatories‐5164755 Twitter: twitter.com/Citizensobs