Progress on ART—An Exposure Modelling Tool for REACH

Two years ago, the British and Dutch occupational hygiene societies co-organized a conference on REACH, the European Union’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemicals regulation [European Union (EU), 2006]. This journal’s report of the meeting said that one of the key topics was trying to decide what exposures would arise from various uses of a chemical when there was very little or no data (Ogden, 2010). The report said that several models were in use, but these were likely to be superseded by a more advanced model, the Advanced REACH Tool (ART). We are pleased to present in this issue a series of papers on ART version 1.0. Tielemans et al. (2011) explain in their overview paper: ART is a higher tier exposure assessment tool that combines mechanistically modeled inhalation exposure predictions with available exposure data using a Bayesian approach. ART assesses exposure for scenarios across different plants and sites. Estimates are provided for different percentiles of the exposure distribution and confidence intervals around the estimate. It also produces exposure estimates in the absence of data, but uncertainty of the estimates will decrease when results of exposure measurements are included. The tool has been calibrated using a broad range of exposure data and provides estimates for exposure to vapours, mists, and dusts.