When assessing the impact of an ingested chemical on human health risk assessment, the chemical’s toxicity is influenced by the degree to which it is absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract into the body (i.e. its bioavailability). As oral references doses and cancer slope factors are generally expressed in terms of ingested dose, rather than absorbed dose, the variability in absorption between different exposure media, chemical forms etc. may significantly influence risk calculations.

In Australia, NEPM health investigation levels are highly conservative and derived using a bioavailability default value of 100%. However, the assumption that 100% of the soil-borne contaminant is bioavailable may overestimate exposure thereby influencing risk calculations. As a result, assessment of contaminant bioavailability may help refine exposure modelling for human health risk assessment.

The Australian Remediation Industry Cluster (ARIC) has developed a 1 day masterclass to Incorporating Bioavailability into Human Health Risk Assessment.  This event brings together the most current information on bioavailability, and synthesizes this information into a practical context that explains concepts and identifies types of data that need to be collected to assess bioavailability and incorporate it into human health risk assessment.

The masterclass will be held in Melbourne as follows:

• Friday 25 June 2010, Citigate Melbourne on 270 Flinders Street, Melbourne.

The masterclass also draws upon the experience of scientific and industry specialists to deliver presentations that demonstrate the use of bioavailability based risk assessments and how they have been able to increase regulator and community confidence in permitting greater levels of residual soil and or sediment contaminants to remain at sites.

Along with a copy of the presentations, all participants will also receive a copy of the CRC CARE guidance document: Contaminant bioavailability and bioaccessibility.  The document has been developed as a resource on the assessment of bioavailability for use by human health and environmental health risk assessors and is expected to be included in the Assessment of Site Contamination NEPM.

To register for this masterclass, please download and complete the registration form on this page.