On September 12, 2014 the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published a report on an OECD expert workshop on children’s exposure to chemicals, which took place on October 7-8, 2013 in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The report includes a draft decision tree to support risk assessors in deciding when to perform children-specific exposure and risk assessments. Recommendations for further work on specific exposure assessment issues are included in the document. The report points to a need for emission scenario documents for specific exposure pathways for children, for general guidance on addressing children’s behavior in estimating the exposure to chemicals, and for the development of children-specific factors or parameters to be used for estimating exposure assessment. The workshop was carried out as part of an effort by the OECD to plan future activities in the area of children’s environmental health. Children have been shown to be particularly vulnerable to environmental hazards, including chemical exposures.
Reference
OECD (2014). “Report on OECD workshop on children’s exposure to chemicals.” (pdf)
