National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), Bilthoven, the Netherlands.
Risk Anal. 2010 May;30(5):808-16. doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2009.01350.x. Epub 2010 Feb 2.
Risk-benefit analyses are introduced as a new paradigm for old problems. However, in many cases it is not always necessary to perform a full comprehensive and expensive quantitative risk-benefit assessment to solve the problem, nor is it always possible, given the lack of required date. The choice to continue from a more qualitative to a full quantitative risk-benefit assessment can be made using a tiered approach. In this article, this tiered approach for risk-benefit assessment will be addressed using a decision tree. The tiered approach described uses the same four steps as the risk assessment paradigm: hazard and benefit identification, hazard and benefit characterization, exposure assessment, and risk-benefit characterization, albeit in a different order. For the purpose of this approach, the exposure assessment has been moved upward and the dose-response modeling (part of hazard and benefit characterization) is moved to a later stage. The decision tree includes several stop moments, depending on the situation where the gathered information is sufficient to answer the initial risk-benefit question. The approach has been tested for two food ingredients. The decision tree presented in this article is useful to assist on a case-by-case basis a risk-benefit assessor and policymaker in making informed choices when to stop or continue with a risk-benefit assessment.
风险效益分析被引入以解决旧问题，但在许多情况下，并不总是需要进行全面、昂贵的定量风险效益评估来解决问题，也并非总是可行的，因为缺乏所需的数据。可以使用分层方法，从更定性的方法逐步过渡到全面的定量风险效益评估。本文将使用决策树来介绍这种分层风险效益评估方法。所描述的分层方法使用与风险评估范式相同的四个步骤：危害和效益识别、危害和效益特征描述、暴露评估和风险效益特征描述，尽管顺序不同。出于本方法的目的，暴露评估已向上移动，剂量反应建模（危害和效益特征描述的一部分）已移至后期。决策树包括几个停止点，具体取决于所收集的信息是否足以回答初始风险效益问题的情况。该方法已经针对两种食品成分进行了测试。本文提出的决策树有助于在具体情况下为风险效益评估员和决策者提供帮助，使其在何时停止或继续进行风险效益评估方面做出明智的选择。
