Health damage

Health risk assessment

Integrated Environmental and Health Impact Assessment (IEHIA) and Health Damage Assessment (HDA) are fundamental tools for estimating the potential effects of environmental pressures on human health. TerrAria applies both methodologies within planning and authorisation procedures when it is necessary to quantify the health risk associated with exposure to atmospheric pollutants, toxic or carcinogenic substances. The objective is to provide a solid technical-scientific framework capable of correlating toxicological data with the level of population exposure, in order to identify higher-risk scenarios and define appropriate mitigation measures.

Integrated Environmental and Health Impact Assessment represents an integrated approach that combines environmental information with health risk estimation, assessing impacts along the entire exposure pathway and considering different sensitive groups. HDA, required for plants subject to IEA (Integrated Environmental Authorization), evaluates the expected potential health damage in relation to the plant’s emission scenarios, integrating dispersion models, epidemiological indicators and toxicological data.

The methodology adopted by TerrAria is based on recognised national and international guidelines: those of the US EPA, the World Health Organization (WHO), OEHHA, European legislation and the main Italian references such as ARPA Veneto, the Interministerial Decree of 24 April 2013 and the ISPRA Guidelines for Integrated Environmental and Health Impact Assessment.

The analysis process includes source characterisation, identification of exposure pathways, estimation of exposure levels for different receptors and correlation with toxicological data specific to each contaminant. This makes it possible to quantitatively calculate both toxic health risk (non-carcinogenic effects) and carcinogenic risk.