Determining Priority Substances for Control on the Basis of Comparative Environmental Risk Assessment: Methodological Considerations

This paper presented a framework to determine priority substances on the basis of comparative environmental risk assessment. Health outcome measures of disability adjusted life year (DALY), quality adjusted life year (QALY) and lost of life expectancy (LLE) were suggested to use in order to compare divergent types of health risks. Comparison results of risks ranking of some pollutants in terms of LLE between China and Japan suggests that priority substances should be determined not only by the toxicity, persistency and bioaccumulation, but also by country-specific emission inventory, environmental concentration and human exposure.