Science and Decisions National Research Council; Division on Earth and Life Studies; Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology
09/2009
eBook
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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.
Despite global progress in understanding the epidemiology of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), knowledge about the epidemic in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) remains limited and ...subject to much controversy. In the more than 25 years since the discovery of HIV, no scientific study has provided a comprehensive, data-driven synthesis of the spread of HIV/AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) in the region. Consequently, the effectiveness of policies, programs, and resources intended to address the spread of HIV/AIDS has been compromised. This report aims to fill the knowledge gap by providing the first-ever comprehensive scientific assessment and data-driven epidemiological synthesis of HIV's spread in MENA. It is based on a literature review and analysis of thousands of largely unrecognized publications, reports, and data sources extracted from scientific literature or collected from sources at the local, national, and regional levels. The resulting collection of data provides a solid foundation on which efforts to stem the spread of HIV/AIDS can be based.'Characterizing the HIV/AIDS Epidemic in the Middle East and North Africa' will be of particular interest to policy makers, researchers, development practitioners, and specialists in public health and epidemiology.
Gene Drives on the Horizon National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Division on Earth and Life Studies; Board on Life Sciences ...
06/2016
eBook
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Research on gene drive systems is rapidly advancing. Many proposed applications of gene drive research aim to solve environmental and public health challenges, including the reduction of poverty and ...the burden of vector-borne diseases, such as malaria and dengue, which disproportionately impact low and middle income countries. However, due to their intrinsic qualities of rapid spread and irreversibility, gene drive systems raise many questions with respect to their safety relative to public and environmental health. Because gene drive systems are designed to alter the environments we share in ways that will be hard to anticipate and impossible to completely roll back, questions about the ethics surrounding use of this research are complex and will require very careful exploration.
Gene Drives on the Horizon outlines the state of knowledge relative to the science, ethics, public engagement, and risk assessment as they pertain to research directions of gene drive systems and governance of the research process. This report offers principles for responsible practices of gene drive research and related applications for use by investigators, their institutions, the research funders, and regulators.
Risk measures play a vital role in many subfields of economics and finance. It has been proposed that risk measures could be analysed in relation to the performance of variables extracted from ...empirical real-world data. For example, risk measures may help inform effective monetary and fiscal policies and, therefore, the further development of pricing models for financial assets such as equities, bonds, currencies, and derivative securities.<false,>A Special Issue of “Risk Measures with Applications in Finance and Economics” will be devoted to advancements in the mathematical and statistical development of risk measures with applications in finance and economics. This Special Issue will bring together the theory, practice and real-world applications of risk measures. This book is a collection of papers published in the Special Issue of “Risk Measures with Applications in Finance and Economics” for Sustainability in 2018.
This report represents the conclusions of a Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee convened to evaluate the safety of various food additives, with a view to recommending acceptable daily intakes (ADIs) and ...to preparing specifications for identity and purity. The first part of the report contains a general discussion of the principles governing the toxicological evaluation and assessment of intake of food additives. A summary follows of the Committee's evaluations of technical, toxicological and intake data for certain food additives: branching glycosyltransferase from Rhodothermus obamensis expressed in Bacillus subtilis, cassia gum, cyclamic acid and its salts (dietary exposure assessment), cyclotetraglucose and cyclotetraglucose syrup, ferrous ammonium phosphate, glycerol ester of gum rosin, glycerol ester of tall oil rosin, lycopene from all sources, lycopene extract from tomato, mineral oil (low and medium viscosity) class II and class III, octenyl succinic acid modified gum arabic, sodium hydrogen sulfate and sucrose oligoesters type I and type II. Specifications for the following food additives were revised: diacetyltartaric acid and fatty acid esters of glycerol, ethyl lauroyl arginate, glycerol ester of wood rosin, nisin preparation, nitrous oxide, pectins, starch sodium octenyl succinate, tannic acid, titanium dioxide and triethyl citrate. Annexed to the report are tables summarizing the Committee's recommendations for intakes and toxicological evaluations of the food additives considered.
"The CDC has made a revision in their philosophy underlying recommended prevention techniques to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. The new approach focuses on ""positive prevention"", that is, prevention ...among people living with HIV/AIDS. This important distinction has resulted in the need to reexamine the behaviors around HIV transmission and the approaches to prevention when working within this diverse population. Positive Prevention is a timely volume containing the latest contributions from the top scholars in the field on preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS. Issues covered include unprotected sex with HIV-positive gay and bisexual men, issues around whether disclosure leads to safer sex, mental health and HIV with young adults, the impact of HIV diagnosis on sexual risk behaviors, interventions in community settings, and more. There is also a important chapter on international perspectives on ""positive prevention"". This volume will serve as an invaluable sourcebook for all professionals working in the field of HIV / AIDS prevention."
Catastrophe Risk Financing in Developing Countries provides a detailed analysis of the imperfections and inefficiencies that impede the emergence of competitive catastrophe risk markets in developing ...countries. The book demonstrates how donors and international financial institutions can assist governments in middle- and low-income countries in promoting effective and affordable catastrophe risk financing solutions.The authors present guiding principles on how and when governments, with assistance from donors and international financial institutions, should intervene in catastrophe insurance markets. They also identify key activities to be undertaken by donors and institutions that would allow middle- and low-income countries to develop competitive and cost-effective catastrophe risk financing strategies at both the macro (government) and micro (household) levels. These principles and activities are expected to inform good practices and ensure desirable results in catastrophe insurance projects.Catastrophe Risk Financing in Developing Countries offers valuable advice and guidelines to policy makers and insurance practitioners involved in the development of catastrophe insurance programs in developing countries.
