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Risk Assessment

The ultimate goal for CASCADE is to offer European consumers state of the art research and reliable knowledge on chemicals in food and their effect on the human body. The risk assessment working group act towards this goal by developing and harmonising European standards for risk assessment procedures. Their work applies to two major areas: Risk assessment integration (WP10) and Risk assessment development (WP11). 

WP10 - Risk Assessment Integration

Major tasks for this WP are to compile and interpret experimental data sets generated within the CASCADE network and to feed them into European polices for regulation and risk management of chemicals, including the RRR’s (Replacement, Reduction and Refinement) and REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals) policies.

Toxicologists within WP10 generate quantitative and qualitative toxicity profiles of chemical food contaminants. WP10 activities are driven by national and European efforts in building an inventory of existing human chemical exposure databases. The aim is to provide a state of the art review of available methods to evaluate exposure to chemical residues in food.

A core group of 10-15 experts from CASCADE, SAFEFOODS, FIRE and NewS has formed a platform called MSTnet “Mathematical and Statistical modelling in Toxicology”. The major MSTnet activities are to establish an internet-based discussion forum, to develop and provide education, and to plan new research projects to be performed in WP11 and in collaboration with other EU projects.

WP10 organizes an international PhD course programme in environmental health risk assessment (RA-Courses). The programme focuses environmental chemistry, toxicology, epidemiology, exposure analysis, human health risk assessment, as well as regulatory toxicology and chemicals policy. The courses are open for PhD students and Post docs, senior scientists and other professionals.

Contact person: Helen Håkansson

WP11 - Risk Assessment Development

Researchers in WP11 use mathematical approaches to improve modelling of experimental data and development of exposure assessment methodology.

For example, they investigates how the results from different methods of exposure assessment can be combined to get a better understanding of the exposure in specific population groups, e.g. children and elderly. In collaboration with the EU-project SAFEFOODS national exposure data are selected and a common probabilistic evaluation methodology and working procedure are established.

A new method, the Benchmark dose (BMD) methodology, has been developed and is now applied to different types of toxicological data-sets.

WP11 experts are also active participants in national and international regulatory toxicology work groups. One example is a joint project with the Swedish National Food Administration (NFA) concerning the tolerable daily intake (TDI) values for dioxin-like compounds in different consumer groups. Here, fatty fish from the Baltic Sea is investigated and an assessment of both nutritional health benefit and contaminant health risk analysis is prepared.

WP leader: Helen Håkansson