Abstract

Regulatory risk assessment is a useful tool in the development of public policy, regulation and decision making in occupational safety and health. It focuses on a detailed quantification of occupational risk to human health which can be directly used for informing decisions about how to manage those risks. Prerequisite of regulatory risk assessment is a clear causal association and exposure-response-relationship. Risk quantification should be based on absolute measures instead of relative measures. Lifetime (excess) risk estimation is the most suitable effect measure in regulatory risk assessment. It provides the estimated probability of disease occurrence due to life long exposure to a special occupational hazard under certain exposure level. Methods on the quantification of Lifetime (excess) risk estimations are going to be introduced based on examples of silica related health issues, such as silicosis and lung cancer. Interpretation of risk estimations should be made carefully, especially regarding the biological plausibility of the estimated exposure-response-relationship, change of exposure patterns over working time, consideration of disease latency and comparability of exposure assessment methods used in various studies or countries.