Assessing the relevance of environmental exposure data sets

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Risk Assessment
• Environmental Monitoring

Background:

• Environmental exposure data are vital for assessing risks and mitigating contaminant impacts.
• Existing evaluation schemes for exposure data are limited compared to hazard data.
• Previous work established reliability assessment for exposure data under the CREED approach.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide an overview and practical guidance on relevance assessment for exposure monitoring data sets within the CREED framework.
• To define relevance as the suitability of data for addressing specific environmental assessment purposes.
• To establish purpose definition as the foundation for relevance assessment and gap analysis.

Main Methods:

• Developed a systematic approach for relevance assessment of environmental exposure data.
• Defined relevance criteria and rating scales (fully met, partly met, not met, etc.) for transparency.
• Demonstrated the approach using three case studies in the freshwater aquatic environment.

Main Results:

• The relevance assessment provides a structured method for evaluating data suitability.
• Case studies illustrate scoring data as relevant (with/without restrictions), not relevant, or not assignable.
• The approach accommodates diverse data characteristics, including organic/inorganic constituents and data quality parameters.

Conclusions:

• Systematic relevance assessment is critical for both evaluating existing environmental exposure data and optimizing new monitoring study designs.
• The CREED relevance framework enhances transparency and supports informed decision-making in environmental risk assessment.
• Explicit gap analysis resulting from the assessment identifies data set limitations for the intended purpose.