E-TEAM Project: Volunteers required for Tier 1 exposure assessment tools Between-User Reliability Exercise

In October 2011, the Institute of Occupational Medicine (IOM) was commissioned by the German Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, (BAuA) to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of the exposure assessment tools identified as suitable for use in Tier 1 assessments under REACH- the ECETOC TRA, MEASE, EMKG-EXPO-TOOL, RISKOFDERM and STOFFENMANAGER.
 
In collaboration with colleagues at the Fraunhofer Institute of Toxicology and Experimental Medicine (ITEM), the IOM is carrying out an investigation of the underlying concepts of each of the tools, assessing their user-friendliness and comparing tool predictions with real workplace inhalation and dermal measurement data.  Information on the different work packages is available on the project website http://www.eteam-project.eu.

When applying the Tier 1 tools to their workplace situation, users are required to select options from a number of possible input parameters.  Application of the tools hence relies on a certain amount of professional experience and judgment, combined with access to an appropriate level of information.  To help us assess the consistency of  tool users’ choices in comparison with other users, we are recruiting volunteers to participate in a Between-User Reliability Exercise which will take place during November 2012.

Participants will be asked to estimate inhalation and dermal exposure using the above tools for 20 workplace situations over a four week period.  Batches of five exposure situations will be issued by email on a weekly basis.  For each exposure situation, a worksheet will be provided which contains full instructions on the completion of the exercise and details of the Tier 1 tool(s) that should be used. We estimate that each batch of five exposure situations will take no more than 60 minutes to complete and participants will be asked to return these by email.  Copies of the tools will be made available to participants and short background and feedback questionnaires will be issued at the start and end of the exercise respectively.

In addition, those participants who complete the Between-User Reliability Exercise may be invited to participate in a one day feedback workshop to be held at IOM, Edinburgh, UK on Thursday 7^th February 2013. 

Further details on the Between-User Reliability Exercise can be found on http://www.eteam-project.eu/Betweenuserreliability.aspx .

We hope that this is of interest to you.  If you would like to participate, please contact Marlyn Davis (maryln.davis@iom-world.org) by Friday 19^th October 2012.