Architecture of the Priority Setting Database (2001)
EPA is proposing to select and screen approximately 50 to 100 chemicals drawn from pesticide active ingredients and HPV chemicals with some pesticidal inert uses (HPV/Inert chemicals) to help EPA further refine the screening and testing program. Note that EPA is not proposing to directly use the Endocrine Disruptor Priority Setting Database (EDPSD) at this time in light of the narrower scope and focus of the initial list.
EPA developed the Endocrine Disruptor Priority Setting Database (EDPSD) version 2 as an automated tool to assist in the evaluation of the large universe of chemicals for Tier 1 screening. EDPSD v2 was developed to be consistent with the priority setting approach set forth in the December 1998 Federal Register Notice [PDF file, 28pp., 228KB, About PDF], below is a description of the architecture of EDPSDv2.
The diagram of the EDPSD v2.1 Architecture [PDF file, 1pp., 24KB, About PDF] illustrates the structure of the database used for the endocrine disruptor compartment-based priority setting for selecting chemicals for Tier 1 Screening. It shows how the organization begins with categories of information. The categories are exposure-related information, effects-related information, combined exposure and effects-related information and specially targeted priorities (e.g. mixtures).
Each information category contains data compartments, the lowest tiers of boxes in this diagram's hierarchy. Compartments generally have information from multiple sources. The sources of data within a compartment are listed under each compartment box. The data in each compartment share a common metric (e.g., mean chemical concentration in the Indoor Air Monitoring Data) from one or more data sources. Chemicals are rank-ordered within compartments from highest to lowest priority for selection. Weights assigned to compartments determine how many chemicals out of the total selected will come from that compartment. Ranking algorithms and weights can be modified by the user to reflect judgments about the importance of various data fields and compartments. The final list of selected chemicals will reflect the ranking within compartments and the weights of compartments, but the chemicals are not ranked within the final list because they lack a common metric.
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