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E S & H news ENVIRONMENTAL, SAFETY & HEALTH COMMUNICATION SPCIAL INTEREST GROUP Volume 3 - number 2 Spring 1999 |
| Mission Statement / Editor's Request |
| ES&H Communication Newsletter |
| Note from the Editor |
| From Away |
| Can We Make Good Environmental Decisions Without Considering Risk? |
| About the authors |
|
The Environmental, Safety & Health Special Interest Group promotes high standards of professional communication and provides a forum for information on environmental science and protection, occupational safety, and public health. Editor's Request Please send us the URLs for web sites of interest to environmental, health, and safety communicators. Send to the editor, Hillary Hart, at this address: Department of Civil Engineering University of Texas Austin, Texas 78712 or hart@mail.utexas.edu
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Profile of a SIG member--Carla Salvador by Carla
Salvador It's a great honor to be given an opportunity to talk about effective communication of safety with other technical communicators all over the world who have similar interests. I'm not an expert, just interested and opinionated. I hope everyone with similar interests and ideas for handling the challenges we all face will contact me. In a past life I was a medieval historian, which explains why I have degrees in History from the University of Toronto and the University of Oxford. So, how did I get from there to here? Well, how many employed medieval historians do you know? I quickly found that working with other people who had esoteric interests and liked to write for publication was both interesting and mildly rewarding financially, and before I knew it, I was an editor. But I was canny enough to determine that some fields were more interesting and lucrative than others. Therefore, for more than 11 years I worked as an authors' editor in an editorial service provided by The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. Most of my work involved Clinical or laboratory research. But gradually the people who were responsible for various aspects of occupational health and safety dumped projects at my door: fire manuals, infection control manuals, disaster plans, flammable liquid storage plans, protocols for managing radioactive outpatients, maps for evacuation planning…. Now this really was fun! The next thing I knew I was managing publications for an organization providing health and safety services for the health care sector all over Ontario: about 225 hospitals, hundreds of nursing homes, senior residents, dental offices, community care providers and also group homes, health care suppliers, and so on. More than a quarter of a million people worked in our health care system in those days, and it was up to me and my colleagues to help them meet their extensive and complex health and safety needs. Well, neither health care nor health and safety is a very stable career in our province at the moment, so that job has disappeared, along with that organization. After being laid off from another similar job I decided to become a full-time freelancer, specializing in editing and writing health and safety publications. Just at the moment I have more work than I can quite handle in this field, but I'm afraid to turn down anything because "you never know." My special interest is in trying to communicate in a way that moves people to incorporate health and safety management into their lives. What about you? Please let me know about your background and interests in communicating health and safety information.
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Medical Writing: A View from the Trenches by Sherri
Bowen I call myself a "medical writer," which is a term that actually covers a wide range of writing types. I write mostly for the pharmaceutical industry, and my clients are pharmaceutical companies, contract research organizations, and medical/pharmaceutical writing agencies. The documents I prepare include regulatory submissions to the US Food and Drug Administration (or related agencies in other countries), reports of clinical trials, and manuscripts for biomedical journals. Below I have listed other aspects of medical writing, which by no means covers the whole range of possibilities. Clients/consumers of medical writing
Medical writing document types
Professional organizations of interest to medical writers
Issues currently facing medical writers
Of these issues, the one I'm currently exploring is authorship, which is a topic that applies to many areas of research, especially those in which publication is considered highly important (if not mandatory!). A recent issue of the Council of Biology Editors publication, CBE Views (Vol. 20, No. 4, Jul-Aug 1997), is wholly devoted to issues of authorship. There is current debate about whether criteria for authorship should be changed. Publication is still considered the "coin of the realm" for scientific research, but there continue to be abuses of the authorship criteria (for example, putting a department chair as an author even though that person contributed little or nothing to the design, conduct, and analysis of the study). In this day of multidisciplinary collaborations on research, more people qualify as authors, that is: each author has participated sufficiently in the work to be able to take public responsibility for the content. Such authorship can be based on substantial contributions to any or all of the following:
There has been a call to abandon this idea of authorship and move to a descriptive system, where authors would simply describe who did what. This has many implications, not the least of which would be the impact on "publish or perish" and all those trappings. And if this system is adopted? Well, I would be the author (in print) on many more papers! Since I mostly do ghostwriting, my name hardly ever appears on the work I do. Yet I usually meet all the authorship criteria (except I'd rather not have to defend the work publicly). Under the current system, how would the publishing community react to me if my ghostwriting status were known? Would I be considered unethical for allowing other people to put their names on work I developed? What if I knew there were authors listed who did not meet the current criteria? Would I be unethical if I did nothing to alert a journal editor about that? In the next issue of ES&H News, I will report on my attendance in mid-September at an international congress on peer review in biomedical publication.
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ES&H Communication Newsletter published by the ES&H Special Interest Group of the Society for Technical Communication
ES&H news is published twice a year by the Environmental, Safety, and Health Communication Special Interest Group (ES&H SIG) of the Society for Technical Communication. The ES&H SIG assists members in the effective communication of the broad aspects of environmental quality, and safety and health aspects of occupational and outdoor environments. The ES&H SIG allows technical communicators to stay current on developments in this growing area of the profession. The Society for Technical Communication assumes no responsibility for the statements and opinions advanced by the contributors to the Society's publications. Editorial views do not necessarily represent the official position of STC. © 1997 by the Society of Technical Communication.
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by Hillary Hart This newsletter is your forum for news and information about environmental, safety, and health communication issues. It is also a voice for those who labor in these fields. We welcome submissions, including narratives of the lives of ES&H communicators. We want to hear from you. Tell us about your job, your challenges. Give us your comments in the form of a letter to the editor or an article. We also, of course, welcome pieces forwarded from another source, as long as the source is made clear and you include a statement of copyright release. Send submissions to this address:
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by David
Adams I wanted to offer some sort of welcome to SIG members. This newsletter represents the efforts of a new management team, especially our editor Hillary Hart. We all feel a responsibility to those who began this group, but we feel even more acutely the burden of helping to chart a future course that will strengthen the Environmental, Safety & Health SIG for you and for those who come after us. I am shedding my deductive, technical writing self to offer some thoughts that may or may not be useful, but they are deeply felt. I started thinking about this column while drifting down the lower Kennebec River in a sea kayak. Twenty-five years ago that stretch of the river was little more than a stew of sewage and industrial waste. The water remains far from pristine, but I can watch bald eagles and osprey soaring above, and the river supports the fish they can eat. And I don't have to wash off my kayak every time I pull it out. I know that progress is the result of many acts of communication. Here in Maine, concern about environmental issues remains almost a personal, gut-level affair–from hunters and fishermen to birders, kayakers, hikers, camp owners and white-water rafters. That level of concern exists cheek-by-jowl with a stubborn independence and resistance to being told what to do by anyone. Here the summer passed laden with news regarding environmental issues. The owners of Maine Yankee, the state's nuclear power plant, decided to close the plant rather than continue the costs of addressing the plethora of safety and administrative issues that have arisen in recent years. Now all concerned face the problem of decommissioning the plant and storing or disposing of its radioactive wastes. The Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has recommended removal of the Edwards
Dam on the Kennebec River, which will allow a number of species of anadromous
fish to reach their historic spawning grounds for the first time in over
a century. Summer also brought the usual spate of ozone alerts, particularly along the coast where the photochemical effect of sunlight on the water exacerbates the problem. The state continues to wrestle with compliance with the Clean Air Act as debate continues over how much of Maine's pollution is carried to the state from other areas. Meanwhile efforts continue to reform forestry practices in Maine and remove chlorine from the paper-making processes used by mills in the state. The amount and quality of communication that must occur before any of these issues gets illuminated or is resolved staggers the imagination. People struggle with definitions of risk, with cost/benefit analyses, etc.–most of you know the processes and the communications headaches better than I do. Those of you working in other regions or in health and safety areas could create your own laundry list of such issues in which our role is critical. Given that there seems hardly enough time to think about how we do our jobs, it occurs to me that our SIG can be a way of helping one another do such thinking. I hope we can draw from and perpetuate the reservoir of experience and expertise that exists among our members. I hope we can also identify and share information about career paths and professional development options in our fields. I hope we can do these things and more, but I know we can't succeed without greater involvement from all of you. To paraphrase the poet, 'We are too few.' Please come forward with your ideas and, as importantly, your willingness to help carry them forward.
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Can We Make Good Environmental Decisions Without Considering Risk? by John E. Till, James R. Rocco, Lesley Hay Wilson
Introduction In the Spring 1997, edition of the ES&H News an article by Peter Montague entitled "Making Good Decisions without Risk Assessment" provided a critical view of risk assessment. This article not only stated that "risk assessment as usually practiced is unethical," but further suggested that risk assessment is generally manipulated to support bad decisions. Mr. Montague's comments are symptomatic of the lack of understanding of the science and process of risk assessment and further emphasize the need for more formal training in risk assessment methods and risk communication. It is unfortunate that Mr. Montague is not aware of the many new advances in risk science and the importance of risk-based decisions in almost every aspect of life today. We would like to expand on Mr. Montague's statement that "risk assessment could be applied to each alternative, as one part of a decision-making process." This is an important concession on his part and is the fundamental value of risk assessment. Risk Assessment Risk assessment is not a new concept and is not limited to environmental issues. In fact, most decisions we make on a day-to-day basis are, in part, based on an evaluation of the potential risks associated with that decision. For example, consider your days as a college student with a major exam the following morning. Your friends call and ask you to go to a party with them. The decision to stay home and study or go out and party with your friends the night before a big test could directly impact your ability to obtain a passing grade. To make that decision you evaluate your options by identifying the potential adverse effects for each option and weighing them against the benefits. An important point is that in this decision there is a risk regardless of which option you select. If you stay home to study, you risk missing out on a good time or possibly offending your friends. If you go out, you may not do very well on the test the next day. Your decision must incorporate issues such as how well you know the test's subject, how important this test-grade is to your overall grade in the course, or how important it may be to be with your friends. Once you have made your decision you have accepted the risks associated with that decision. Environmental Risk Assessment Environmental risk is defined as the potential for adverse effects caused by an exposure to a chemical released to the environment. The process of quantifying the environmental risk resulting from this exposure is environmental risk assessment. It is the merging of many disciplines of science. An exposure occurs when a person comes in contact with a chemical through such mechanisms as inhalation of vapors, ingestion, or contact of the chemical with the skin. The risk from the exposure is quantified by applying data that have been collected on the potential toxicity or adverse effects of a chemical. Where there is no current or potential exposure to a chemical or where the concentration of the chemical is not harmful to human health or the environment then the conclusion of the risk assessment is that there is no environmental risk. Environmental Risk-Based Decisions An environmental risk-based decision uses risk assessment as one of the ways to determine the potential harm associated with the release of a chemical into the environment. This decision-making process could be for corrective action for releases occurring in the past (i.e., improving environmental quality) or as a means of evaluating various alternatives for a current or proposed industrial or commercial process (i.e., sustainable development). Regardless of the specifics of the application. There are several steps that are critical to the risk-based decision process. These activities are:
Stakeholders A critical element in making risk-based decisions is ensuring that stakeholders have an understanding of the process and the basis for the risk-based decisions. Stakeholder reaction to the potential for an environmental risk is an important consideration in making risk-based decisions. Stakeholders are individuals or groups who have an interest in or are potentially impacted by the outcomes of the risk-based decision process. Stakeholders include the community affected by a decision, the local and state government, the landowners involved, and the businesses involved. Also, some decisions may affect communities other than the one immediately adjacent to the area of the actual or potential chemical release. To the extent that another community may be affected by a decision, that community should also be included as stakeholders in the process. Potential Alternatives Selection For any past or future release of a chemical there will be alternatives for solving or addressing the release. Each alternative will have benefits to the stakeholders and risks. It must be recognized that the risks associated with an alternative are not just limited to human health risks but also include other non-environmental risks such as financial risks. Applying the science of risk assessment helps stakeholders quantify the potential risks of each alternative and allows for the rational, objective comparison of the alternatives Risk Management Decisions Environmental risk-based decisions require the consideration of a combination of scientific, social, political, personal and economic factors, all of which are incorporated into risk management decisions that are protective of human health and the environment. Essentially, risk management decisions allow similar decisions to be made for similar circumstances and different decisions to be made for issue or site-specific circumstances. These decisions provide the basis for defining acceptable environmental risk. Many risk management decisions rely on the application of scientific methodologies. For example, identification of chemicals of concern, determination of acceptable concentrations of chemicals, and determination of appropriate data quality and quantity are risk management decisions that depend on science. However, other risk management decisions rely on social, economic, or other non-scientific factors for definition, for example, the determination of future land use, point(s) of exposure, and acceptable incremental lifetime cancer risk factors. The views and values of the stakeholders are critical to this risk-based decision-making. Good risk management includes discussion of the range of options for these decisions among the stakeholders involved. Information Collection Good decisions require good information. Therefore, an essential activity in risk-based decision making is to collect the information and data necessary to identify and evaluate the alternatives and to make reliable decisions. This information includes not only technical data–such as sampling and analysis of air, soil or ground water, and evaluation of the potential future scenarios in which a release might occur–but also information of interest to the area or community likely to be impacted. This latter information seeks to quantify the potential benefits to the community for each of the alternatives evaluated. Potential for Exposure The potential for exposure to any given chemical will be dependent on the exposure pathway, or the course a chemical takes from the point of a release to the point of exposure to humans. An understanding of the fate and transport of a chemical along an exposure pathway is essential to the determination of the potential for exposure. The science of evaluating fate and transport of a chemical in the environment has improved enormously over the past decade. Once exposure pathways are identified, the potential exposure can be quantified. There are two possible scenarios that must be considered. First, is there a potential for any exposure to a chemical? Second, if there is a potential for exposure then what is the acceptable concentration of that chemical at the point of exposure that will protect human health and the environment? Acceptable concentrations can be derived using chemical characteristics (including toxicity) or can be based on concentrations such as the drinking water Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs) published by regulatory agencies. If there is no potential for exposure, then there is no environmental risk. However, if there is a potential for exposure, then acceptable concentrations of the chemicals can be determined based on the risk management decisions and the physical and toxicological properties of the chemical. One criticism of the risk assessment process that Mr. Montague presents is that thc process of understanding exposure and toxicity ignores many "endpoints" and "sources." Mr. Montague is also critical of the process of scaling animal exposure data to human exposures. In fact, the process of risk assessment performed properly incorporates significant safety factors to account for relationships that cannot be quantified or effects that cannot be directly measured. Safety factors, incidentally, are used in all aspects of engineering from bridge building to aircraft design. Risk assessment advocates the use of sufficiently conservative assumptions to account for uncertainties in exposures and toxicity. In addition, including the appropriate stakeholders in the definition of concerns and the determination of risk management decisions ensures that the stakeholders as a group can define the safety factors to their comfort level. Comparison of Alternatives Once the risks and benefits of each of the alternatives has been quantified, the alternatives are evaluated. The evaluation should consider these factors:
Summary The goals of environmental risk-based decision-making arc sustainable development and improvement in environmental quality. Ultimately human health and the environment benefit greatly from the science of risk assessment and the application of risk assessment in risk-based decision-making. Although risk assessment is a new science, it is rapidly maturing into an important and distinct discipline of its own. 1 here is no question that the risk assessment process is not as well understood by scientists or the public as it should be. As with any new science, it will take time and better education in risk science for this understanding to occur. It is reasonable to expect that there are many individuals such as Mr. Montague who do not understand risk assessment methods and especially who are not aware of the vast improvements and contributions of this science during recent years. There is no question that risk assessment will continue to evolve and mature and ultimately become a basic science of its own.
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James R. Rocco, Manager, Environmental Remediation, BP Oil Company. Mr. Rocco has been with BP Oil for the past 23 years and has over 20 years of experience and involvement in the development, management and implementation of environmental compliance and corrective action programs related to the petroleum industry. He is currently responsible for environmental corrective action activities and related legislative and regulatory activities for BP Oil marketing, terminal, pipeline, and refinery facilities. Lesley Hay Wilson, P.E., Senior Environmental Remediation Engineer, BP Oil Company. Ms. Hay Wilson has 10 years of experience in corrective action and currently provides consultation and senior review to BP corrective action project managers. In 1997, she was selected to receive a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship Award to investigate the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in environmental risk assessment. She is currently completing the requirements for a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. John E. Till, Ph.D., President, Risk Assessment Corporation. Dr. Till specializes in the development and application of models used for chemical and radionuclide risk assessment. He is the 1994 recipient of the Department of Energy's E.O. Lawrence Award for outstanding contributions to radiation dose reconstruction programs and effective leadership in public communication in the areas of radiological assessment, dose reconstruction, and risk analysis.
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