W1 AM Nuts and Bolts of Logistics and Data Management for Data-Intensive Programs
Wednesday, 16 November 2005: 8:00 AM - 11:40 AM in Ballroom 1

(SUT-1118-077763) Data management for categorization of existing substances based on health risk under CEPA.

Meek, M.¹, Cayer, J-F.¹, Sutcliffe, R. ¹, ¹ Existing Substances Division, Health Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

ABSTRACT- The Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) requires that the Ministers of Health and the Environment complete categorization (prioritize) of the approximately 23,000 substances on the Domestic Substances List (DSL) by September 2006 for subsequent screening and/or full risk assessment. Health Canada is to identify those substances that pose the greatest potential for exposure to the general population, and those that are inherently toxic to humans for a subset identified as persistent and/or bioaccumulative by Environment Canada. A multi-tiered approach including novel simple and complex tools is applied to efficiently identify those substances of highest priority for further assessment based on relative risk to human health in Canada. Application of the tools for large numbers of substances has required collection and record-keeping for significant amounts of information in order to transparently delineate the basis for decision-making. It has also led to development of robust search strategies for both use and hazard profiling in order to maximize identification of relevant data often from obscure sources for the significant numbers of compounds being considered. Experience on the program in data accessibility, management and the availability of output of categorization will be described.

Key words: categorization, human exposure, human health