The Health Risk Assessment Approach, a Tool for Managing Risks on the Scale of a Territory: A French Experience

ABSTRACT

In France, regulatory analysis of the environment and human health potential consequences is implemented for an isolated industrial activity that requests an authorization to operate using the health risk assessment method. To date, the question is enlarged to the impact of the combination of multiple sources of pollution on the same territory. The main conclusions of the work launched by the French High Council of Public Health focus on four key points: (i) the utility of conducting such an analysis at a territory scale, (ii) the delimitation of the area, (iii) the conditions for the different stakeholders’ involvement, and (iv) the methodological specificities of the “zone health risk assessment.” The work encompassed literature reviews, seminars, and interviews of stakeholders. The utility of a Z-HRA is the central objective for the management of risk. It can no longer be conducted only for itself. The delimitation of the zone entails economic, political, environmental, and population aspects. Stakeholders become key actors in a steering and monitoring committee. Among methodological specificities, cumulative exposure comes first. Interpretation of the results should focus on risk management objectives. Finally, inclusion of Z-HRAs in flexible regulations that can be adapted to the local context is recommended.

Key Words:

• health risk assessment
• zone assessment
• cumulative exposure
• stakeholders’ involvement.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors thank all the persons who accepted to be interviewed within the framework of this work. They also thank the consultants who established the literature reviews. The authors also express their gratitude to the general secretariat of HCSP, which allowed this work to be conducted in good conditions.

Notes

French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety.

French Institute for Public Health Surveillance.

Institut de l’Environnement Industriel et des Risques.

The guideline value for the environmental media (often air, but this can be water or soil) corresponds to a level of concentration of the substance that is not likely to induce a health effect or for the environment for a chronic exposure in the current state of scientific knowledge.

This provision aims to align the obligations of the public decision-makers, with regard to health risks, with those that have prevailed very recently in France in terms of planning, with the public decision-maker now having to specify in this case “the measures that are deemed necessary to respond to the lessons drawn from public debate” (Fourniau 2011).