A computer program for conducting incinerator risk assessments

In 1994, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) develope d a Screening methodology for conducting indirect exposure risk assessments for combustion facilities. The United States Army Center for Health Promot ion and Preventive Medicine currently utilizes this methodology in conjunct ion with other USEPA guidance documents to perform human health risk assess ments (HHRAs). The HHRAs require the development of complex human health mo dels using spreadsheet software packages which estimate various media conce ntrations of contaminants in the environment. Since the quality assurance/q uality control procedures associated with verifying the model's results are extremely time consuming, a computer program was developed using Microsoft Excel(R) to minimize the amount of time needed. This discussion describes the 6 steps taken in developing this computer program, which are: (1) under standing the problem; (2) establishing the structure of each table in the s preadsheets; (3) developing an algorithm to solve the problem; (4) writing code; (5) running the program; and (6) testing the results. The automated p rocess of having the computer predict health risk and hazards for each pote ntially exposed individual saves a tremendous amount of time because each c alculated value is placed in the correct spreadsheet cell location. In addi tion to the time needed to develop human health spreadsheets, this program also minimizes the potential for reducing human error.