RISK 21: an innovative approach for human risk assessment and its application in occupational exposure to plant protection products in viticulture
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36125/ijoehy.v13i4.466Keywords:
RISK21, Risk assessment, occupational exposure, agriculture worker, agrochemicalsAbstract
RISK21 (Risk Assessment in the 21st Century, www.risk21.org) [Pastoor, T.P. et al. 2014] is an initiative developed by the Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI) aimed at proposing a transparent and efficient scientific approach for the assessment of human risk deriving from exposure to chemical compounds.
A case study is presented to illustrate the usefulness of this tool applied to the regulatory framework of the pre-marketing tiered approach risk assessment of agricultural workers exposed to plant protection products (PPPs) residues in viticulture.
A risk assessment of eleven pesticides among fungicides, insecticides and herbicides was conducted with a step wise approach starting with default exposure and toxicity assumptions followed by a second evalution for which more specific exposure determinants, and toxicity information were used. Worker exposure values to pesticides residues were estimated using the recently updated EU harmonized deterministic model (OPEX) and following the general principles for professional agricultural workers risk assessment outlined in European Food safety Authority guidance (EFSA 2022). The results of the illustrated case study showed that the application of RISK21 could result in a very useful tool for prioritization of actions; moreover its flexibility facilitate decision making on which exposure/toxicity information is deemed necessary to grant a safe use of PPPs.
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