Air & Water Quality – Respiratory Hazard Index
This indicator reports the non-cancer respiratory hazard index score. This score represents the potential for noncancer adverse health effects, where scores less than 1.0 indicate adverse health effects are unlikely, and scores of 1.0 or more indicate a potential for adverse health effects.
Source
Source Description
The Air Toxics Screening Assessment (AirToxScreen) is EPA’s screening tool to provide communities with information about health risks from air toxics. AirToxScreen is part of EPA’s new approach to air toxics that provides updated data and risk analyses on an annual basis, helping state, local and tribal air agencies, EPA, and the public more easily identify existing and emerging air toxics issues.
Methodology
This indicator reports the modelled non-cancer health risks associated with air toxics exposure. Figures represent the likelihood of hazardous exposure per 1 million population. Data are from the 2014 EPA National Air Toxic Assessment-Modeled Ambient Concentrations, Exposures and Risks data files. EPA combines the census tract level exposure concentration estimates with available unit risk estimates and inhalation reference concentrations to calculate risks and hazard quotients, respectively, for each pollutant.
The toxicity values used for NATA are quantitative expressions used to estimate the likelihood of adverse health effects given an estimated level and duration of exposure. These toxicity values are based on the results of dose-response assessments, which estimate the relationship between the dose and the frequency or prevalence of a response in a population or the probability of a response in any individual. Because NATA is focused on long – term exposures , the toxicity values used in NATA are based on the results of chronic dose-response studies when such data are available. Chronic dose – response assessments can be used to help evaluate the specific 70 – year – average (i.e., “lifetime”) ECs associated with cancer prevalence rates, or, for noncancer effects, the concentrations at which noncancer adverse health effects might occur given exposure over an extended period of time (possibly a lifetime, but the time frame also can be shorter). For more information, please see the 2014 Assessment homepage or in the Technical Support Document.
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