Targeted Risk Assessment

Background:

The ECETOC targeted risk assessment (TRA) Task Force reported in 2004 (Technical Report 93), and launched the supporting web-based tool http://www.ecetoc.org/tra shortly after. Since 2004, several thousand users have registered with ECETOC to gain access to the tool and benefit from its abilities. As part of the process for maintaining the integrity and relevance of the TRA approach, ECETOC has also held a series of meetings and events with experts from member companies and regulatory authorities with the aim of identifying what further modifications may be either necessary or beneficial.

The TRA Task Force was re-convened in 2006 with the aim of reviewing the current basis for the approach and making recommendations for further improvements. The Task Force's initial recommendations were delivered to ECETOC's Scientific Committee in 2007 and were subsequently scoped in terms of the work effort required to integrate them into an updated version of the TRA tool. The value of the TRA was recognised under the European Commission's REACH activity, developing Technical Guidance for Chemical Safety Assessments (CSAs). Specifically, the TRA has been seen as the preferred approach for evaluating worker health risks (at the Tier 1 level) as well as having the potential for evaluating consumer health risks. At the same time, the need to develop a more workable and pragmatic approach to environmental risk assessment using the principles laid down within the EUSES model was accepted.

Since the summer of 2007, ECETOC has developed the ideas and science underpinning the TRA and continued its dialogue with the Commission and the European Chemicals Agency (EChA). During 2008/early 2009, the TRA task force  worked to develop improved exposure estimation models for workers, consumer and the environment that carry forward the principles that were pioneered in the original TRA web tool whilst accommodating many helpful suggestions from the stakeholder processes. The resulting TRA version 2 was introduced in July 2009.

TRA 2010 versions:

Subsequent to the release of the TRA version 2 in July 2009, ECETOC has held a series of meetings and events with experts from member companies and regulatory authorities with the aim of identifying what further modifications may be either necessary or beneficial.

While the science underlying the ECETOC Targeted Risk Assessment remains unchanged, ECETOC has revised certain aspects of the Targeted Risk Assessment tool in order to take into account the latest development of the REACH Guidance Chapters R12, R14, R15, and R16, and to respond to the users' feedback and to implement the full functionality of the tools