International Conference on Using Epidemiological Studies in Health Risk Assessments: Relevance, Reliability and Causality

At this conference, epidemiologists, health statisticians, risk assessors, other users of epidemiological evidence (e.g. toxicologists and nutritionists) as well as risk managers and stakeholders are invited to share and discuss their experiences to promote the use of epidemiological data for health risk assessments.

Observational epidemiological studies can provide valuable evidence for health risk assessments in various areas including food and feed safety, chemical and product safety, occupational health, environmental health and animal health.

However, the use of epidemiological data to assess health risks is often not systematic. The presumed inability of observational studies to demonstrate a causal relationship may even lead to their exclusion from the evidence assessment although they may provide valuable evidence for example in a weight-of-evidence approach.

Risk assessors may encounter challenges when using epidemiological data for their assessments. Some of these are related to the approaches for the critical appraisal of the evidence of individual studies. For example, the critical appraisal should consider uncertainties in the methods used to determine exposures, risk factors and outcomes. Uncertainty about the causal nature of an observed association is a central question in the use of epidemiological evidence in health risk assessment.