Development and Evaluation of Novel Dose-Response Models For Use In Microbial Risk Assessment

Abstract

This document contains a description of dose-response modeling methods designed to provide a robust approach under uncertainty for predicting human population risk from exposure to pathogens in drinking water.

The purpose of this document is to describe a body of literature on a predictive (unconditional) Bayesian framework as an alternative to the currently used approach (variations on ILSI, 2000) to express the risk of infection and illness resulting from exposure to pathogens in drinking water. Secondarily, an alternative to the Poisson distribution for characterizing pathogens in tap water is also described. Together, these new methods may provide a more realistic and rigorous depiction of the impact of water-borne pathogens on drinking water consumers.
This document was prepared by the National Center for Environmental Assessment (NCEA) in support of the Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water. The document is a summary and synthesis of five publication manuscripts authored by Jim Englehardt of the University of Miami in collaboration with Jeff Swartout and Chad Loewenstine of EPA’s Office of Research and Development. The project was undertaken to address specific limitations of standard probablistic approaches for the use of dose-response information in decision-making processes.

Impact/Purpose

Development of drinking water and wastewater reuse policy

Status

This is the final report.

Citation

U.S. EPA. Development and Evaluation of Novel Dose-Response Models For Use In Microbial Risk Assessment. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-08/033, 2008.

Date	Description
01- 2001 - 2007	The project began in 2001 as a 6-month Interagency Personnel Agreement with the University of Miami, with Dr. Englehardt as the principal investigator. Dr. Englehardt returned part time in 2005 as an ORISE Fellow with NCEA until the completion of the project in 2007. Three manuscripts have been published in the open literature and two more have been submitted for publication.

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