An Approach to Assessing the Influence of Environmental and Occupational Cancer Hazard Identification on Policy Decision-Making.
Suril S MehtaIsabelle MorinKimberly OsbornCourtney R LemerisMichael ContiRuth M LunnPublished in: Environmental health perspectives (2023)
U.S. regulatory agencies have been using cancer hazard evaluations, such as the RoC, for decades to inform public health policy actions to prevent or mitigate cancer risks. Specifically, nonregulatory cancer hazard assessments have been used to prioritize chemical evaluations, support regulatory-based assessments, and trigger regulatory action. Our approach showed that assessing the influence of cancer hazard identification on science-based public health policies is feasible, informative, and needed, and our study is a first step in this direction. We recommend expanding this approach to other cancer and noncancer hazard assessments to ultimately inform our understanding of the influence of hazard classifications on policymaking. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP12681.