Grant: Collaborative Research and Training Experience

Canadians face an ever increasing number of potential health risks from environmental contaminants. Examples include lead in imported toys, bisphenol-a in household plastics, incidental ingestion of arsenic from mine tailings, and urban pollution from sources such as brownfield sites and automobile emissions. The government, scientists, and the public need to know the dangers that contaminated soil, water, air, foodstuffs, and consumer products pose to humans and the ecosystem and how to manage these risks to protect human and ecological health. Assessing and managing risk requires a professional with expertise in public health sciences, environmental toxicology, and relevant Canadian laws and regulations. Currently, however, no comprehensive risk assessment training program teaches students about all three areas. In fact, there is a large knowledge gap between the environmental sciences, public health sciences, and the law. Usually researchers from several disciplines acquire and study data used for risk assessment, but they are rarely involved with the entire risk assessment process (estimating, managing, and communicating the risk), and they rarely collaborate. An outstanding group of Canadian experts has come together to develop an innovative training program to address this gap. It will train a new class of professionals who understand the entire process of assessing and managing the risk that environmental contaminants pose to humans and ecosystems. It will also be the first training program to explore Canada's environmental laws and regulations and the role of risk assessors within the legal framework. Called the NSERC CREATE Training Program in Human and Ecological Risk Assessment (HERA), this national, multidisciplinary program will train students to assess the public health risk posed by contaminated sites and toxicants in our environment.