A review of several methods used in France to assessment the impact of chemicals and radionuclides on human health

Health disasters in the 1970s and 1980s clearly showed the association between anthropogenic activities and impacts on the environment and on human health. The first tool implemented in the 1980s to evaluate the health impact of chemicals - still used today - is the (quantitative) human health risk assessment. Other methods have been applied over the past 20 years. Members of the SFSE's Section on risk and impact assessment methodologies have, working with other experts in the field, studied six of these in depth to gain a better understanding of what they share and how they differ, and in what contexts each can be used: (quantitative) human health risk assessments, (quantitative) health impact assessments, socio-economic analyses, health impact assessments according to the Goteborg consensus, interpretations of the state of the environment, and radionuclide risk assessments. This article summarizes the outcome of these discussions. Some of these tools yield complementary responses to the topic of human health risk, covering, for example, public health, well-being (now included by WHO in the definition of health), financial costs and radionuclide assessment. Misunderstandings abound about these tools, the terminology used to define them, and their goals. Therefore, clarification is needed to help stakeholders choose the appropriate tool.