National Technical Reports Library

The National Technical Information Service acquires, indexes, abstracts, and archives the largest collection of U.S. government-sponsored technical reports in existence. The NTRL offers online, free and open access to these authenticated government technical reports. Technical reports and documents in its repository may be available online for free either from the issuing federal agency, the U.S. Government Publishing Office’s Federal Digital System website, or through search engines.

Details

Retrospective Exposure Assessment in Industrial Settings.

PB2005105204

Publication Date	2000
Personal Author	Ramachandran, G.
Page Count	60
Abstract	A variety of health effects are caused by chronic, cumulative exposure over time to pollutants. In these cases, to establish dose-response relationships for epidemiological and risk assessment purposes, it is vital to determine the exposures of individuals or cohorts as functions of time. Most existing occupational exposure databases, however, do not contain continuous records of historical exposures to airborne contaminants. These gaps in historical record may be filled by using the knowledge-base that experts and professionals in the field possess. In this project, we present a new framework, based on Bayesian probabilistic reasoning for obtaining estimates of exposure histories for airborne particulates from limited historical measurements, using subjective expert judgment. The framework has great potential applications in instances where there is sparse information or missing data on past exposures. Traditional methods, using only available historical measurements result in estimates with large uncertainties. Limited information on estimates of airborne concentrations and worker exposures to airborne nickel aerosol are used to estimate the uncertainty in historical air monitoring data. This uncertainty arises from environmental variabilities, systematic biases as well as uncertainty due to various measurement criteria used over a period of several decades. Retrospective exposure reconstruction based solely on such historical measurements leads to estimates with such large error bars as to be not useful for developing quantitative dose-response relationships for epidemiology.
Keywords	Occupational exposure Industrial plants Industrial medicine Health effects Pollutants Epidemiology Dose-response relationships Air pollution Contaminants Risk assessment Particulates Ventilation Air quality monitoring Industrial hygiene Aerosols Nickel compounds
Source Agency	National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
Corporate Authors	Minnesota Univ., Minneapolis. School of Public Health.; National Inst. for Occupational Safety and Health, Washington, DC.
Supplemental Notes	Sponsored by National Inst. for Occupational Safety and Health, Washington, DC.
Document Type	Technical Report
Title Note	Final rept.
NTIS Issue Number	200517

Retrospective Exposure Assessment in Industrial Settings.

Retrospective Exposure Assessment in Industrial Settings.
PB2005105204

Publication Date	2000
Personal Author	Ramachandran, G.
Page Count	60
Abstract	A variety of health effects are caused by chronic, cumulative exposure over time to pollutants. In these cases, to establish dose-response relationships for epidemiological and risk assessment purposes, it is vital to determine the exposures of individuals or cohorts as functions of time. Most existing occupational exposure databases, however, do not contain continuous records of historical exposures to airborne contaminants. These gaps in historical record may be filled by using the knowledge-base that experts and professionals in the field possess. In this project, we present a new framework, based on Bayesian probabilistic reasoning for obtaining estimates of exposure histories for airborne particulates from limited historical measurements, using subjective expert judgment. The framework has great potential applications in instances where there is sparse information or missing data on past exposures. Traditional methods, using only available historical measurements result in estimates with large uncertainties. Limited information on estimates of airborne concentrations and worker exposures to airborne nickel aerosol are used to estimate the uncertainty in historical air monitoring data. This uncertainty arises from environmental variabilities, systematic biases as well as uncertainty due to various measurement criteria used over a period of several decades. Retrospective exposure reconstruction based solely on such historical measurements leads to estimates with such large error bars as to be not useful for developing quantitative dose-response relationships for epidemiology.
Keywords	Occupational exposure Industrial plants Industrial medicine Health effects Pollutants Epidemiology Dose-response relationships Air pollution Contaminants Risk assessment Particulates Ventilation Air quality monitoring Industrial hygiene Aerosols Nickel compounds
Source Agency	National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
Corporate Authors	Minnesota Univ., Minneapolis. School of Public Health.; National Inst. for Occupational Safety and Health, Washington, DC.
Supplemental Notes	Sponsored by National Inst. for Occupational Safety and Health, Washington, DC.
Document Type	Technical Report
Title Note	Final rept.
NTIS Issue Number	200517