Use of product databases for risk assessment purposes

Product information databases are important prerequisites for providing data to poison centers (PC) to give adequate advice in cases of poisonings and for preparation of statistics as annual reports. For risk assessment measures, they can help for exposure assessments and for priority setting. A product database is a set of information of product and substance names, compositions, and uses of products. Data are provided due to national regulations as well as to national and international agreements between industry, international associations, e.g. the European Association of Poison Centres and Clinical Toxicologists (EAPCCT), and clinical toxicology institutions. They have different contents, i.e. complete formulations, frame formulations, and material safety data sheets. For definite identification of products, the product name should be readily taken from the labels and must be similar to the names provided by electronic media as databases. Products should be classified according to their use. The first system that has been prepared for that purpose is the ATC classification for pharmaceuticals. For chemicals, several systems e.g. the WHO-IPCS classification code, exist; the EU technical guidance document for risk assessment of chemicals is mentioning use categories, and they are used on national levels as well. For risk assessment purposes, statistics of poisonings and other health hazards are important as well as information about exposure. Linking cases of poisonings with product data enables risk assessors to perform statistical evaluations about health effects due to product use categories which can be compared to product compositions. If products are categorized by their use, information about use characteristics, such as frequencies and durations, can be derived. Hence, product categories can be taken to characterize scenarios and thus help for model estimations of exposure and respective doses.