On January 30, 2020, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published a technical report detailing guidance for human risk assessment of combined exposure to multiple chemicals. The report implements the EFSA MIXTOX guidance document (FPF reported) and applies tiered and stepwise approaches “to problem formulation, exposure assessment, hazard assessment and risk characterization.” It provides a “low tier risk assessment methodology for regulated compounds and contaminants with non-cancer effects.”
The methodology makes use of harmonizing existing exposure metrics using the upper and lower bound of the 95th percentiles, and the hazard assessment applies health-based guidance values (HBGV) for acute and chronic effects from the OpenFoodTox database. Risk characterization is done by applying an assumption of dose addition and calculating a hazard index (HI) as the sum of the ratios between hazard and exposure metrics. HI values below one are considered to be of low concern, and values greater than one require either refining the risk assessment or applying risk management.
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EFSA (January 30, 2020). “Human risk assessment of multiple chemicals using component‐based approaches: A horizontal perspective.”
