标题：The Environmental Protection Agency's Community-Focused Exposure and Risk Screening Tool (C-FERST) and Its Potential Use for Environmental Justice Efforts
摘要：Objectives. Our primary objective was to provide higher quality, more accessible science to address challenges of characterizing local-scale exposures and risks for enhanced community-based assessments and environmental decision-making. Methods. After identifying community needs, priority environmental issues, and current tools, we designed and populated the Community-Focused Exposure and Risk Screening Tool (C-FERST) in collaboration with stakeholders, following a set of defined principles, and considered it in the context of environmental justice. Results. C-FERST is a geographic information system and resource access Web tool under development for supporting multimedia community assessments. Community-level exposure and risk research is being conducted to address specific local issues through case studies. Conclusions. C-FERST can be applied to support environmental justice efforts. It incorporates research to develop community-level data and modeled estimates for priority environmental issues, and other relevant information identified by communities. Initial case studies are under way to refine and test the tool to expand its applicability and transferability. Opportunities exist for scientists to address the many research needs in characterizing local cumulative exposures and risks and for community partners to apply and refine C-FERST. Communities disproportionately affected by pollutants may have higher environmental exposures and health risks than other communities, as well as less access to the information and resources needed to mitigate these risks. The 2004 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee Cumulative Risk report 1 and the 2009 National Academy of Public Administration review of the Community Action for a Renewed Environment (CARE) program 2 highlighted the difficulties communities and EPA regional offices have with characterizing disproportionate exposures or risks. Community involvement in prioritizing environmental health issues for specific areas or groups of people is crucial; community groups and members can supply local knowledge and interpret results in the context of local decision-making. To identify risks and prioritize risk mitigation actions, communities need user-friendly tools that provide both environmental exposure and health-related information. At the March 17–19, 2010 Symposium on the Science of Disproportionate Environmental Health Impacts in Washington, DC, EPA administrator Lisa P. Jackson stated that the agency's science and tools should “translate into action.” The EPA wants to help address these needs by developing, providing, and applying science tools that (1) assemble and rely on the best available information, (2) identify communities at risk (or conversely, healthy communities) and hot spots or disproportionate impacts within communities, and (3) empower communities to access this information and thereby make their own informed decisions. The Community-Focused Exposure and Risk Screening Tool (C-FERST) was designed to support communities' environmental justice (EJ) efforts. The tool is being developed by the EPA's Office of Research and Development in the National Exposure Research Laboratory, which is conducting research to provide tools that enhance community-based cumulative risk assessments. 3 This research responded to requests from the Environmental Protection Agency's CARE program, the Office of Environmental Justice, EPA regional offices, and communities themselves, as well as recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences, 4 National Academy of Public Administration, 2 and other agencies. To ensure that these tools are scientifically sound, research is necessary to account for the many factors that may affect human exposure and health risks in a community, including chemical and nonchemical factors. C-FERST is considered the “flagship tool” of the EPA National Exposure Research Laboratory's cumulative and communities human exposure research program ( http://www.epa.gov/heasd/communities ) because it incorporates what is known about high-priority environmental issues, provides a venue for communicating cutting-edge science and solutions to communities, and helps to identify knowledge gaps. The program's overall goal is to develop, apply, and provide to communities and individuals tools for advancing the science and understanding cumulative risk (cumulative risk assessment is defined by the National Research Council [NRC, 2009] as “evaluating an array of stressors [chemical and non-chemical] to characterize—quantitatively to the extent possible—human health and ecologic effects, taking into account factors such as vulnerability and background exposures.” 4 (p224) One high-priority research area focuses on developing and communicating human exposure and cumulative risk science and characterizing sources, concentrations, human exposure, and health risks at the national and local levels for several critical environmental issues. C-FERST could also provide information for assessments of cumulative impact, defined by the California EPA (2005) as “exposures, public health, or environmental effects from the combined emissions and discharges in a geographic area, including environmental pollution from all sources, whether single or multi-media, routinely, accidentally, or otherwise released. Impacts will take into account sensitive populations and socio-economic factors, where applicable and to the extent data are available.” 5 C-FERST links to and builds on other community-focused tools, and it provides state-of-the-science approaches to characterizing community exposures to environmental contaminants that lead to cumulative risks. Using C-FERST to inform community-based cumulative exposure and risk assessments and communicate related science supports the EPA priorities to clean up communities and work for EJ. Its use also supports multiple EPA initiatives, programs, and activities by asking similar questions related to community-based cumulative exposure and risk. Figure 1 depicts C-FERST's role in the context of actions to improve public health. In addition to being used to identify communities with disproportionate impacts and to prioritize environmental issues in high-risk communities, C-FERST will be enhanced to support evaluation of risk reduction actions (e.g., establishing a baseline for comparison and quantifying performance metrics). Open in a separate window FIGURE 1 Community-Focused Exposure and Risk Screening Tool (C-FERST) in the context of science and tools for improving public health. Note. http://www.epa.gov/heasd/c-ferst .
