Cumulative Risk Assessment for Environmental Hazards

Ken Sexton,

Ken Sexton

University of Texas School of Public Health, Brownsville, TX, USA

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Ken Sexton,

Ken Sexton

University of Texas School of Public Health, Brownsville, TX, USA

Search for more papers by this author

First published: 15 September 2008

https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470061596.risk0514

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Abstract

Humans and ecosystems face combined threats from exposures to numerous biological, chemical, physical, and psychosocial stressors in the environment. Cumulative risk assessment is a tool for organizing and analyzing information about combined adverse effects from collective exposure to multiple environmental stressors across all relevant sources, pathways, and routes. The process involves three interrelated phases: planning, scoping, and problem formulation; data analysis; and interpretation and risk characterization. Although in its infancy, cumulative risk assessment promises, over time, to provide decision makers with more realistic answers to pressing environmental questions.

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