NCRP Commentary No. 14, A Guide for Uncertainty Analysis in Dose and Risk Assessments Related to Environmental Contamination
NCRP Commentary No. 14 addresses key issues involved in performing and reviewing quantitative uncertainty analyses. The Commentary emphasizes the importance of rigorously defining the assessment endpoint, the need for expert judgment in the absence of relevant data sets, and the use of uncertainty analysis in an iterative mode to define model components warranting more detailed investigation. Guidance is given on when and how to perform an uncertainty analysis, and how to use formal elicitation of expert judgement in the absence of site-specific data to obtain the most defensible quantification of the current state of knowledge about critical parameters and model components. The Commentary constitutes an element in the Council’s overall effort focused on uncertainty in environmental dose calculations and associated risks. Previously, the NCRP released Commentary No. 8, Uncertainty in NCRP Screening Models Relating to Atmospheric Transport, Deposition and Uptake by Humans, and other studies are underway that are concerned with (1) uncertainties in the application of metabolic models and (2) uncertainties in fatal cancer risk estimates used in radiation protection.
News & Events