Mixtural toxicity, cumulative risk, and environmental justice in United States federal policy, 1980 - 2016; Why, with much known, was little done?
- alishac6
- Sep 17, 2021
- 1 min read
Updated: Dec 17, 2024
by: Robert Hunt Sprinkle, Devon Payne-Sturges
In 2021, my colleague Robert Hunt Sprinkle found that the barriers to advancing policy on cumulative risk extend beyond the challenge of assessing the toxic effects of chemical mixtures and engineering. The challenges lie within the social and political contexts. A lack of shared terminology for cumulative risks, fragmented governance of environmental health, and the conflicts between economic development and environmental justice paradigms may prove to be greater obstacles.
My collaboration with colleagues in the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy involved archival research on the EPA’s early internal documents regarding chemical mixtures policy. We uncovered and examined past and present external and internal constraints preventing the EPA from addressing chemical mixtures and cumulative risk. As a follow-up to this work, I co-hosted two innovative workshops in 2022 and 2023, focusing on policy solutions for cumulative risk and impacts. Outcomes from these workshops included a set of guiding principles and a whole-of-government, multi-sector, interdisciplinary action agenda to design solutions for cumulative risks and impacts within current legal frameworks.
This project was supported by the University of Maryland’s College of Behavioral and Social Sciences’ Dean’s Research Initiative seed grant.
Sprinkle, Robert Hunt, and Devon C Payne-Sturges. “Mixture toxicity, cumulative risk, and environmental justice in United States federal policy, 1980-2016 : Why, with much known, was little done?.” Environmental health : a global access science source vol. 20,1 104. 17 Sep. 2021, doi:10.1186/s12940-021-00764-5