Project Director: Weihsueh Chiu

Funding Organization: National Academies of Science, Engineering, Medicine: Gulf Research Program

Funding Cycles: Thriving Communities 4

Description: Current evaluations of public health impacts of oil spills are largely based on only what is known about a few specific chemicals in oil. However, an oil spill can involve a complex mix of interacting substances and environmental factors and this produces many unknowns that are either difficult or not currently possible to account for. Alternative approaches are needed to address existing limitations and improve assessment and decision-making processes relating to public health risks resulting from oil spills. This project, which includes interactions with a diverse range of practitioners, aims to address this need using new approaches and technologies in exposure science and toxicology that try to predict the toxicity of substances for which there is limited information using information from analogous or similar substances.