The California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) characterizes the risks of pesticides to human health using a science-based, weight-of-evidence approach. This approach includes a rigorous systematic literature review to identify and evaluate all relevant data from any verifiable source. DPR has developed best practices for conducting systematic reviews as a key part of risk assessment. DPR’s systematic review is conducted using PECO criteria as a standard for assessing the relevance of published data for assessing potential risks, posed by pesticides, to human health. PECO criteria describe the populations (P), exposures (E), comparators (C), and outcomes (O) of interest for a specific chemical. With each criterion established, the systematic review is conducted in four phases: search, screen, review, and optimize (SSRO). Specific search terms are used to query databases that identify all possible publications with relevant data. Each publication is screened with relevant publications being used to identify or derive points of departure (PoD). The process is optimized as information gaps are identified. The systematic literature review results for three pesticides (allyl isothiocyanate (AITC), methomyl, and linuron) are reported here. Publications were screened for relevance to human health risk assessment and later stratified into categories. Datasets suitable for dose-response modeling were analyzed using Benchmark Dose Software. This formalized systematic review process supports human health risk assessment at DPR. Our systematic reviews for AITC, methomyl, and linuron provided the weight of evidence considerations for likely modes of action and identified sensitive toxicological effects and potential PoDs. This streamlined process will improve the rigor of human health risk assessments.

Systematic review for DPR human health risk assessments: best practices as applied to case studies with allyl isothiocyanate, methomyl, and linuron

ACS Fall 2020 Virtual Meeting

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