Total Risk Integrated Methodology (TRIM) - TRIM.Risk
TRIM.Risk, the risk characterization module, is used to integrate the information on exposure received from TRIM.FaTE (for ecological receptors) or TRIM.Expo (for human receptors) with that on dose-response or hazard assessment and to provide quantitative descriptions of risk or hazard and some of the attendant uncertainties. For an overview of TRIM and how these modules fit together, see TRIM-General Information. The TRIM.Risk module and associated tools provide the capability to summarize or highlight the major points from each of the analyses conducted in the TRIM modules. In general, this includes documentation of assumptions and input data, performance of risk calculations and data analysis, and presentation of results and supporting information.
The current version of TRIM.Risk is a beta version that provides the following capabilities: (1) calculation of a wide range of deterministic inhalation cancer risk and non-cancer hazard metrics at the individual and population level; (2) calculation of the hazard quotient for a suite of ecological receptors; and (3) a visualization tool for presenting analysis results in various automated formats (see the documentation for the Data Analysis and Visualization Engine (DAVE) below). Subsequent phases of TRIM.Risk are expected to provide, among other enhancements, ingestion risk metrics and probabilistic simulations that can be used to evaluate the uncertainty and variability inherent in modeling inhalation, ingestion, and ecological risk. The intention is for future versions of TRIM.Risk to provide the information required to prepare a full risk characterization.
A version of TRIM.Risk for probabilistic exposure response functions (TRIM.RiskHuman Health-Probabilistic) has been developed and applied in the 2007 ozone NAAQS risk assessment. This version is not yet available in generic form for easy use in other applications. But the version used in the 2007 ozone NAAQS risk assessment is available and is described in the User’s Guide for it posted under Example Applications on the TRIM.Risk Download page.
User’s Guide
Those planning to use TRIM.Risk are strongly encouraged to carefully review the TRIM.Risk User’s Guide. It provides an overview of the module, its components and related software, including descriptions of their roles in TRIM and how they fit together. It also describes the human health and ecological risk applications, the available metrics, and provides step-by-step instructions for performing these types of assessments using TRIM.Risk.
Example Applications
Peer Review and Publications
The general description and conceptual plan for TRIM.Risk, which was presented to the Agency’s Science Advisory Board, is discussed in the December 1999 TRIM Status Report.