NERA Managing Director and Co-Chair of the Environment Practice Dr. Anne E. Smith will be chairing the panel, “Making Air Pollutant Risk Estimates Policy Relevant,” at the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA on 14 December 2016. As part of the panel, Dr. Smith will present on the topic, “Rebuilding Consistency Between the Health Risk Analyses for a NAAQS [National Ambient Air Quality Standards] Review and the Rationale for the NAAQS Decision.” NERA Senior Consultant Dr. Garrett Glasgow will also join the panel and present his paper, “Statistical and Model Uncertainty in the Estimated Risk of Lung Function Decrements Due to Ozone Exposure.”

Dr. Smith’s presentation will examine why subjective uncertainties need to be more explicitly incorporated into criteria pollutant risk analyses if such analyses are to provide meaningful support for NAAQS decisions. She will outline a process for doing so in the context of NAAQS decision-making that could avoid some of the concerns with greater use of subjective judgment. 

Dr. Glasgow’s presentation will explain why the EPA’s risk estimates for ozone exposure do not adequately consider the influence of various types of uncertainty. Dr. Glasgow will also make suggestions for how to properly address this concern.