Environmental Health Criteria (EHC) is a series of monographs prepared by the
International Programme on Chemical Safety The International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS) was formed in 1980 and is a collaboration between three United Nations bodies, the World Health Organization, the International Labour Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme, t ...
(IPCS) and published by the
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of h ...
(WHO). They aim to give "comprehensive data from scientific sources for the establishment of safety standards and regulations."
[.] More than 230 EHCs have been published.
Many EHCs cover the properties of individual chemicals or of groups of related chemicals (see, e.g., EHC 65: Butanols). Since 1998, this role has mostly been taken over by the related
Concise International Chemical Assessment Documents (CICADs), also prepared by the IPCS and published by the WHO. EHCs can also cover non-chemical (potential) hazards (see, e.g., EHC 35: Extremely low frequency (ELF) fields) and methodology (see, e.g., EHC 144: Aged Population, principles for evaluating the effects of chemicals).
[.]
EHCs are based on a search of the scientific literature, and do not include new experimentation (unlike, e.g.,
SIDS
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is the sudden unexplained death of a child of less than one year of age. Diagnosis requires that the death remain unexplained even after a thorough autopsy and detailed death scene investigation. SIDS usual ...
or
EU-RARs) although they may contain recommendations for further studies. A typical monograph on a chemical substance would include:
*the
physical
Physical may refer to:
*Physical examination
In a physical examination, medical examination, or clinical examination, a medical practitioner examines a patient for any possible medical signs or symptoms of a medical condition. It generally co ...
and
chemical properties
A chemical property is any of a material's properties that becomes evident during, or after, a chemical reaction; that is, any quality that can be established only by changing a substance's chemical identity.William L. Masterton, Cecile N. Hurley ...
of the substance and
analytical methods for determining
concentration
In chemistry, concentration is the abundance of a constituent divided by the total volume of a mixture. Several types of mathematical description can be distinguished: '' mass concentration'', ''molar concentration'', ''number concentration'', an ...
s and
exposure;
*sources of environmental and industrial exposure and
environmental transport
Sustainable transport refers to ways of transportation that are sustainable in terms of their social and environmental impacts. Components for evaluating sustainability include the particular vehicles used for road, water or air transport; th ...
;
*
chemobiokinetics and
metabolism
Metabolism (, from el, μεταβολή ''metabolē'', "change") is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. The three main functions of metabolism are: the conversion of the energy in food to energy available to run cell ...
including
absorption
Absorption may refer to:
Chemistry and biology
* Absorption (biology), digestion
**Absorption (small intestine)
*Absorption (chemistry), diffusion of particles of gas or liquid into liquid or solid materials
*Absorption (skin), a route by which ...
,
distribution Distribution may refer to:
Mathematics
*Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations
* Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a vari ...
,
transformation
Transformation may refer to:
Science and mathematics
In biology and medicine
* Metamorphosis, the biological process of changing physical form after birth or hatching
* Malignant transformation, the process of cells becoming cancerous
* Trans ...
and
elimination;
*short- and long-term effects on animals, including
carcinogenicity
A carcinogen is any substance, radionuclide, or radiation that promotes carcinogenesis (the formation of cancer). This may be due to the ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes. Several radioactive sub ...
,
mutagenicity
In genetics, a mutagen is a physical or chemical agent that permanently changes genetic material, usually DNA, in an organism and thus increases the frequency of mutations above the natural background level. As many mutations can cause cancer in ...
, and
teratogenicity
Teratology is the study of abnormalities of physiological development in organisms during their life span. It is a sub-discipline in medical genetics which focuses on the classification of congenital abnormalities in dysmorphology. The related t ...
;
*an evaluation of risks for human health and of the effects on the environment.
Monographs do not contain specific guidelines for regulations (although they might contain examples of national exposure limits, for example), and they do not constitute an official position of the WHO or of any of the other organizations participating in the IPCS.
References
{{reflist
External links
List of Environmental Health Criteria monographs
Chemical safety