Invited Perspective: The Promise of Fit-for-Purpose Systematic Evidence Maps for Supporting Regulatory Health Assessment

By Katherine E. Pelch and Carol F. Kwiatkowski
EHP
May 17, 2022
DOI: 10.1289/EHP10743

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) is charged with the Herculean task of critically assessing the safety of tens of thousands of chemicals. New methods that support improved efficiency and effectiveness of risk assessments, including the systematic evidence map described by Carlson et al.¹ in this issue, are greatly needed.

The application of systematic review (SR) methods to the field of environmental health began in earnest nearly a decade ago with the development and publication of applicable methods.^2–4 Today the approach has evolved to include systematic evidence maps (SEMs), which provide access to study data extracted from a large body of evidence to inform SR, risk assessment, and other chemical management workflows.⁵

SEMs are extremely useful for assessing large chemical classes, such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), for which the scientific evidence base is poorly characterized. PFASPFAS are widely used in consumer and industrial products; they are persistent and mobile, and thus ubiquitous in the environment; and several have been demonstrated to be harmful to humans and wildlife.^6–11PFAS have been detected in the bodies of nearly every person tested, in the United States and worldwide.^12,13 With more than 12,000 PFAS12,000 PFAS identified to date,¹⁴ the time it would take to assess them individually would lead to unnecessary delays in regulating these chemicals when so many people are already at risk. We and others have called for management of PFAS as a single class.^15,16 Until that happens, the U.S. EPA can be commended for its efforts to assess large groups of PFASPFAS such as those evaluated by Carlson et al. in their SEM of approximately 150 PFAS (PFAS-150).¹

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