Science and Decisions National Research Council; Division on Earth and Life Studies; Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology
09/2009
eBook
Open access
Risk assessment has become a dominant public policy tool for making choices, based on limited resources, to protect public health and the environment. It has been instrumental to the mission of the ...U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as well as other federal agencies in evaluating public health concerns, informing regulatory and technological decisions, prioritizing research needs and funding, and in developing approaches for cost-benefit analysis.
However, risk assessment is at a crossroads. Despite advances in the field, risk assessment faces a number of significant challenges including lengthy delays in making complex decisions; lack of data leading to significant uncertainty in risk assessments; and many chemicals in the marketplace that have not been evaluated and emerging agents requiring assessment.
Science and Decisions makes practical scientific and technical recommendations to address these challenges. This book is a complement to the widely used 1983 National Academies book, Risk Assessment in the Federal Government (also known as the Red Book). The earlier book established a framework for the concepts and conduct of risk assessment that has been adopted by numerous expert committees, regulatory agencies, and public health institutions. The new book embeds these concepts within a broader framework for risk-based decision-making. Together, these are essential references for those working in the regulatory and public health fields.
Most people have struggled with reading in one situation or another, depending on their appreciation for the content, their prior experiences, and the texts. This department column shares ways for ...educators to help literacy learners unlock their potential with instruction anchored in their skills, knowledge, ways of learning, interests, and attitudes.
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Advancing Natural Language Processing in Educational Assessment examines the use of natural language technology in educational testing, measurement, and assessment. Recent developments in natural ...language processing (NLP) have enabled large-scale educational applications, though scholars and professionals may lack a shared understanding of the strengths and limitations of NLP in assessment as well as the challenges that testing organizations face in implementation. This first-of-its-kind book provides evidence-based practices for the use of NLP-based approaches to automated text and speech scoring, language proficiency assessment, technology-assisted item generation, gamification, learner feedback, and beyond. Spanning historical context, validity and fairness issues, emerging technologies, and implications for feedback and personalization, these chapters represent the most robust treatment yet about NLP for education measurement researchers, psychometricians, testing professionals, and policymakers.
OBJETIVONingún sistema de salud cuenta con los recursos necesarios para evaluar todas las tecnologías. Contar con un proceso claro para priorizar qué tecnologías serán evaluadas por las agencias de ...evaluación de tecnologías sanitarias (ETESA) constituye un principio de buena práctica reconocido a nivel internacional. El objetivo del Foro de Políticas en Latino América (LatamPF) 2020 de Health Technology Assessment International fue explorar cómo puede mejorarse la forma en que las agencias de ETESA de Latino América identifican y priorizan las tecnologías a ser evaluadas. MÉTODOSEste manuscrito está basado en un documento base, una encuesta, y en el trabajo deliberativo realizado por los miembros (cuarenta y seis participantes, once países) que participaron del LatamPF, a través de la metodología design-thinking. RESULTADOSLos participantes coincidieron en que la falta de mecanismos claros de priorización trae como consecuencia una falta de legitimidad de las decisiones y procesos de ETESA, que son percibidos como poco transparentes y demasiado expuestos a presiones políticas o de grupos de interés. También se identificaron barreras y acciones para mejorar los mecanismos de priorización de ETESA en América Latina. Los criterios identificados como más importantes para ser tenidos en cuenta por las agencias de ETESA de la región al momento de priorizar una tecnología para ser evaluada fueron la carga de enfermedad, el potencial beneficio clínico, la alineación con prioridades de salud nacionales, el potencial impacto en la equidad, ausencia de otras alternativas para los pacientes, y el potencial impacto económico. CONCLUSIONESLos participantes del Foro coincidieron en que el establecimiento de procesos transparentes de priorización es un elemento clave para todos los sistemas de salud. Las mejoras en este proceso fortalecerán la ETESA en Latino América y darán mayor legitimidad a sus decisiones.
Earthquakes, floods, drought, and other natural hazards cause tens of thousands of deaths, hundreds of thousands of injuries, and billions of dollars in economic losses each year around the world. ...Many billions of dollars in humanitarian assistance, emergency loans, and development aid are expended annually. Yet efforts to reduce the risks of natural hazards remain largely uncoordinated across different hazard types and do not necessarily focus on areas at highest risk of disaster. Natural Disaster Hotspots presents a global view of major natural disaster risk hotspots – areas at relatively high risk of loss from one or more natural hazards. It summarizes the results of an interdisciplinary analysis of the location and characteristics of hotspots for six natural hazards – earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, floods, drought, and cyclones. Data on these hazards are combined with state-of-the-art data on the subnational distribution of population and economic output and past disaster losses to identify areas at relatively high risk from one or more hazards.
Since the Kurikulum Merdeka was implemented to respond to the learning loss students experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic, student-centered learning assessment (SCLA) has become a significant ...part of current Indonesian senior high school educational initiatives. However, previous research found that teachers need more understanding of the concept of SCLA. Thus, this study explores vocational high school EFL teacher's understanding of SCLA in implementing problem-based learning in the Kurikulum Merdeka aligned with the theory from Jonassen (2000). This qualitative case study employed an interview as the main instrument to discover an understanding from one teacher. Based on the data analysis through thematic analysis, the findings revealed that the teacher had a fair understanding of the student-centered learning assessment's concepts, advantages, and obstacles. Nevertheless, the teacher still needed to learn more about SCLA. Although not all of the research findings were relevant to the previous study and the theory, the teacher reasonably implemented the student-centered learning assessment while improving the future teaching- learning process, particularly the assessment system. Moreover, there is an expectation for the school, principals, and other stakeholders to pay attention to providing teachers with training regarding student-centered learning assessment. In addition, teachers are expected to be willing to stay up-to-date with the change of curriculum, including the shift in the assessment form, teachers' role, and learning to understand the current curriculum and the learning methods.
The role of measurement and the benefits of outcome measures are defined as important tools used to document change in one or more constructs over time, help to describe a client's condition, ...formulate a prognosis, as well as to evaluate the effects of occupational therapy intervention. Occupational Therapy Assessments for Older Adults: 100 Instruments for Measuring Occupational Performance presents over 100 outcome measures in the form of vignettes that encompass a brief description of each instrument, a review of its psychometric properties, its advantages and disadvantages, administration procedures, permissions to use, author contact information, as well as where and how to procure the instrument. Occupational Therapy Assessments for Older Adults by Dr. Kevin Bortnick narrows down the list of possible choices for the occupational therapy student or clinician to only those with an amount of peer review, bibliographic citations, as well as acceptance within the profession. The text also includes research-based information with text citations and has over 100 tables, diagrams, and figures. Included in the review of each outcome measure: Description: A brief record of the measure. Psychometrics: A review of the level of research evidence that either supports or does not support the instrument, including such items as inter-rater, intra-rater, and test-retest reliabilities, as well as internal consistencies and construct validities among others. Advantages: Synopsis of the benefits of using the measure over others including its unique attributes. Disadvantages: A summary of its faults. For example, the amount of research evidence may be limited or the measure may be expensive. Administration: Information regarding how to administer, score, and interpret results. Permissions: How and where to procure the instrument, such as websites where it may be purchased or journal articles or publications that may contain the scale. Summary: A brief summation of important information. Occupational Therapy Assessments for Older Adults: 100 Instruments for Measuring Occupational Performance encourages occupational therapy and occupational therapy assistants to expand their thinking about the use of appropriate outcome measures with older adult populations. Using the appropriate outcome measure based on evidence can aid in the promotion of health, well-being, and participation of clients.
There is a pressing need to capture and track subtle cognitive change at the preclinical stage of Alzheimer's disease (AD) rapidly, cost‐effectively, and with high sensitivity. Concurrently, the ...landscape of digital cognitive assessment is rapidly evolving as technology advances, older adult tech‐adoption increases, and external events (i.e., COVID‐19) necessitate remote digital assessment. Here, we provide a snapshot review of the current state of digital cognitive assessment for preclinical AD including different device platforms/assessment approaches, levels of validation, and implementation challenges. We focus on articles, grants, and recent conference proceedings specifically querying the relationship between digital cognitive assessments and established biomarkers for preclinical AD (e.g., amyloid beta and tau) in clinically normal (CN) individuals. Several digital assessments were identified across platforms (e.g., digital pens, smartphones). Digital assessments varied by intended setting (e.g., remote vs. in‐clinic), level of supervision (e.g., self vs. supervised), and device origin (personal vs. study‐provided). At least 11 publications characterize digital cognitive assessment against AD biomarkers among CN. First available data demonstrate promising validity of this approach against both conventional assessment methods (moderate to large effect sizes) and relevant biomarkers (predominantly weak to moderate effect sizes). We discuss levels of validation and issues relating to usability, data quality, data protection, and attrition. While still in its infancy, digital cognitive assessment, especially when administered remotely, will undoubtedly play a major future role in screening for and tracking preclinical AD.
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Before Fukushima, the most notorious large-scale nuclear accident the world had seen was Chernobyl in 1986. The fallout from Chernobyl covered vast areas in the Northern Hemisphere, especially in ...Europe. Belarus, at the time a Soviet republic, suffered heavily: nearly a quarter of its territory was covered with long-lasting radionuclides. Yet the damage from the massive fallout was largely imperceptible; contaminated communities looked exactly like noncontaminated ones. It could be known only through constructed representations of it. InThe Politics of Invisibility, Olga Kuchinskaya explores how we know what we know about Chernobyl, describing how the consequences of a nuclear accident were made invisible. Her analysis sheds valuable light on how we deal with other modern hazards -- toxins or global warming -- that are largely imperceptible to the human senses.Kuchinskaya describes the production of invisibility of Chernobyl's consequences in Belarus -- practices that limit public attention to radiation and make its health effects impossible to observe. Just as mitigating radiological contamination requires infrastructural solutions, she argues, the production and propagation of invisibility also involves infrastructural efforts, from redefining the scope and nature of the accident's consequences to reshaping research and protection practices. Kuchinskaya finds vast fluctuations in recognition, tracing varyingly successful efforts to conceal or reveal Chernobyl's consequences at different levels -- among affected populations, scientists, government, media, and international organizations. The production of invisibility, she argues, is a function of power relations.
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