THE ASSESSMENT OF HEALTH RISK TO OCCUPATIONALLY EXPOSED NAVY PERSONNEL - A CONSIDERATION OF ISSUES

Occupational exposures of Naval personnel to toxic chemicals and other substances occur continually by virtue of their jobs and the mission of the Navy. Such exposures are similar to, yet in many respects disti nct from, either occupational exposures of civilian workers or environ mental exposures of the general population. Primary dissimilarities ma y include the duration of exposure, the intermittent nature of exposur e, and the age, health, and physical condition of the exposed populati on. Although the length of individual exposures may be similar, the cu mulative time in which a worker is exposed is likely to be different. Any exposures at a given duty station are often intermittent with prol onged (days or months) exposure-free periods in between. The Navy, the refore, is faced with developing an occupational risk assessment parad igm specific to, and appropriate for, the types of occupational exposu res experienced by Navy personnel in the performance of shipboard or o ther duties. Acceptable risk must take into account not only the prote ction of worker health, but also the ability of the exposed individual to fulfill the Navy mission at hand. Hence, the toxicity endpoints, e xposure assumptions, and risk assessment used as a basis of chronic ri sk determination for the general population may not be the most approp riate approach for Navy personnel in some situations. This article dis cusses the differences between Navy and nonmilitary exposure scenarios and contrasts the merits of some of the existing exposure standards a nd surveillance programs in use to estimate health risk in a Navy sett ing.