Environmental health risk assessment ‐current status, challenges, and future needs

INSPIRE Conference, AalborgTuesday 17th June, 2014

Presented by Dr. Hai-Ying Liu

Hai-Ying Liu, hyl@nilu.noAlena Bartonova, aba@nilu.no

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

Presentation outline

– 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

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

– Future direction on E&H monitoring

Approaches to integrated monitoring for environmental health risk 

assessment (EU FP6 INTARESE project)

Challenges and the way forward

(Source: Liu et al., 2012, http://www.ehjournal.net/content/pdf/1476‐069X‐11‐88.pdf)

– 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

Challenges and the way forwardWhat data quality do we need?

Lower

Higher

Relative Re

quire

d Da

ta Quality

p

Ambient air monitoring network and compliance

Supplement Air Monitoring 

Network 

g

Community based monitoring 

andScreening

Education and Qualitative monitoring

€

€€€

Relative Cost

Relative Deployment Density(Source: Snyder et al. Env. Sci. Tech. 2013)

Two EU‐funded projects

Quality of life in cities (indoor and outdoor)Health effects from traffic pollution

Decreasing air pollution Increasing quality of life

CITI‐SENSE (EU FP7) and Citi‐Sense‐MOB (EU EMMIA/DG Enterprise) Vision

Small, low‐cost sensorsInformation and Communication Technology

Important problems:

Few air quality monitoring stationsNo real‐time data where people areAbsence of personalized data

Opportunities and challenges:

Increased spatial coverageComplementary air quality dataNear real‐time personalized data

Participatory UrbanismCitizens’ participation and empowerment

(Source: Nuria Castell, ncb@nilu.no)

How are we going to do it?Sensor platformNOx, CO, O3, PM, RH, T

Data ServicesCloud services

Data providers VGI

GNSS

AQ Models

Traffic situation

Citizen ParticipationParticipatory Governance through Social Media

Processing raw data, fusion, modelling

Data storage

Public & PrivateSectors

CitizensSpecial Interest Groups

User services

COT

(Source: Nuria Castell, ncb@nilu.no)

– 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

GEOSS compatibility

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