In risk assessment, which term describes estimates of the extent or amount of human exposure to a chemical?

• A. Hazard identification
• B. Dose-response assessment
• C. Exposure assessment
• D. Risk characterization

Answer: (C)

Exposure assessment focuses on estimating how much of a chemical people encounter. It looks at the amount, frequency, and duration of contact, the routes of exposure (inhalation, ingestion, dermal), and who is exposed, through data on environmental concentrations, human behavior, and physiology. For example, estimating daily intake of a pesticide from food and air exposure illustrates this idea. This differs from hazard identification, which asks whether the chemical can cause adverse effects; dose–response assessment, which examines how effects change with dose; and risk characterization, which combines exposure estimates with hazard information to describe overall risk.