 |
The one core
function of public health (PH) presented earlier (Slide 8) makes the point that there is a
need for identifying populations at risk and for assessing the health of communities.
Although the relationship between PH and health risk assessment (RA) is built upon this
premise, this part of the PH mission is by no means completed until the risks at issue
have been mitigated to an acceptable level. To this end, we must rely on some effective
exposure monitoring and exposure mitigation programs or policies to enforce “laws and
regulations that protect health and ensure safety”, such being one of the 10 essential
PH services expected by the American Association of Schools of Public Health. The ways
in which human exposure can be monitored and assessed were discussed briefly in Lecture 1,
and will be the main topics of Lectures 7 and 8. Suffice it to say here is that the type
of exposure monitoring activity referred to in this slide has a different purpose than the
type whose results are used in RA to determine a risk issue. Here exposure monitoring is a
surveillance tool used to guide regulatory action. That is, typically the results of an RA
will be used to help determine whether an exposure scenario is or will be safe, or a
population is or will be at risk. Exposure mitigation is then the process or activity
through which measures are adopted to lower the current or potential exposure at issue.
Exposure monitoring as referred to here, on the other hand, is a program or requirement
designed to ensure that the exposure (as well as risk) in a workplace or a
community continues to be at or below the safe level. |
