Summer school QMRA
Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment
June 20-25, 2010
Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
RISK ASSESSMENT OF PATHOGENS IN THE ENVIRONMENT
A wide range of pathogens uses the outdoor environment as transmission pathway. These environmental pathogens are able to survive and thrive outside the human or animal host. Some examples from recent years are Cryptosporidium in water and food or Q-fever and SARS in the air. To combat these threats to human health, we need to integrate knowledge from microbiology, ecology, epidemiology, environmental engineering and public health sciences. Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment (QMRA) is a well established methodology to combine these different pieces of knowledge to assess the health risk of environmental exposure to pathogens. It is used in many fields and routes of exposure: food, water, air, fomites. QMRA allows objective, science based assessment of the health significance of an exposure route and can predict the effects of intervention strategies. QMRA is a framework that integrates the best available scientific knowledge to a level that is understandable for risk managers and supports risk-based decision making.
PROGRAM
Program
COURSE PRESENTATIONS
Monday: Introduction and hazard identification
1. Introduction to QMRA (Medema)
2. Waterborne pathogens (Rose)
4-6. Statistics and uncertainty (Weir)
Tuesday morning: exposure assessment
7. Detection methods of pathogens (Rose)
8-10. Airborne transmission models (Swart)
Tuesday afternoon: risk communication and perception
12. Risk communication (Woudenberg)
Wednesday
13. Animal and human studies (Haas)
14. Dose response models (Haas)
15. Importance of events (Teunis)
17. Quantitative viral risk assessment (de Roda Husman)
Thursday
18. QMRA based risk management
16. Risk characterization, dalys, cost of illness
Case studies
Case study Boil water advisory
Case study Irrigation of foodcrops with wastewater
Case study Legionella in windscreen wash
Case study Sustainable urban drainage
Videos
You can see and hear the lectures and case study presentations here
Photos
Summer School photos can be viewed here. Use the login and password you have received though e-mail.
ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS
Four Dutch Institutes provide their expertise for this summer school: the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), KWR Watercycle Research Institute, Utrecht University Institute of Risk assessment Sciences (IRAS) and Delft University of Technology. These institutes are the core of research into (water) environmental health risk of pathogenic micro-organisms in The Netherlands. Their research results have influenced water safety policy at national, EU and WHO level.
The Centre for Advancing Microbial Risk Assessment (CAMRA) is a U.S. Homeland Security Center of Excellence established jointly with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to develop scientific knowledge on the fate and risk of bioterrorist and other high priority infectious agents. They have organized 4 editions of a Summer Institute on Microbial Risk Assessment at Michigan State University already. This Summer School draws on that experience.
MORE INFORMATION
Helena Sales Ortells
KWR Watercycle Research Institute
Groningenhaven 7
3433 PE Nieuwegein
The Netherlands
T: +31306069511
F: +31306061165
M: helena.sales.ortells@kwrwater.nl
