Issue 20 Chemical Hazards and Poisons Report

Synopsis

Over the years the Chemical Hazards and Poisons Report has emerged as an important source of advice and information on an increasingly broad range of topics from chemical incident management through to climate change.  Our recent survey of users suggests that articles published in the report are clearly valued and of interest with over 95% of respondents rating the report good or excellent.  It was also clear that subscribers welcome electronic access to the Report and often forward it to colleagues via email. 

The Report is intended to be a platform for the rapid and timely dissemination of incident reports, lessons identified and summaries of new guidance and research to a wide range of professional groups, in order to improve multi-agency response to chemical incidents and protect health. 

One of the key roles of the HPA is to expand and strengthen the evidence base upon which we make health protection decisions.  In many areas, there is a surprisingly small amount of research underpinning health protection work in the field of chemicals and non-infectious diseases. 

This is the underlying theme with this edition with articles highlighting:

•  the HPA’s new statement on landfills and health;
• important new work and opinions on the health impacts of air quality and health;
• the issues presented by the recovery phase of a large chemical or radiological incident;
• new research projects on risk prioritisation and exposure characterisation;
• and the impacts of issues such as heat stress and extreme weather (flooding and thunderstorms). 

The Report also contains our regular features such as incident management, which this time looks at the public health issues associated with spillages from domestic oil supplies, and toxicology, which includes an article on the development of EU programmes on human biomonitoring.

Last reviewed: 23 September 2011