THE IMPORTANCE OF HUMAN EXPOSURE INFORMATION - A NEED FOR EXPOSURE-RELATED DATA-BASES TO PROTECT AND PROMOTE PUBLIC-HEALTH

As a subfield of public health, environmental health is concerned with evaluating and ameliorating the effects of people on the environment and the effects of the environment on people. Separating hazards from risks, and characterizing the magnitude, likelihood, and uncertainty o f risks is at the heart of environmental health in the 1990s. To this end, a full range of data is needed, including data that characterize the distribution of hazards, the population potentially at risk, and t he contact between people and pollution that creates the risk. Several government-sponsored data systems contain information on a range of e xposure estimators. The challenge is to develop meaningful, properly v alidated models to identify public health needs and evaluate public he alth programs.