Overview of SRA's Specialty Groups

Biological Stressors

In 2005, the Biological Stressors Specialty Group changed its name from the Food and Water Safety Specialty Group to more fully capture the broader fields of interest and issues related to food, animal and plant risk assessment. Biological stressors are a distinct category of hazards and include: human pathogens transmitted via food, water, air, organs (including blood), and body fluids and excretions; zoonotic pathogens; biologically produced disease agents (such as allergens and mycotoxins); plant and animal pathogens; plant and animal pests; invasive species; and invasive genetic material. These hazards share many common features: they grow, reproduce and die; they disperse both actively and passively; they interact with other biological populations in the ecosystem; and they evolve.

Decision Analysis and Risk

The Decision Analysis and Risk Specialty Group (DARSG) provides leadership and plays an active role in advancing the use of decision analysis and risk assessment tools in policy and practice, and also facilitates knowledge development and idea exchange. The interdisciplinary nature of this specialty group implies close ties and joint activities with other specialty groups, especially with the Economics, Ecological Risk Assessment and Risk Communication Groups. DARSG sponsors best student paper awards and SRA continuing education workshops, reviews relevant papers submitted for the annual meetings, and coordinates joint activities with other professional societies (INFORMS Decision Analysis Society, Military Application Society, SETAC, SOT).

Dose-Response

The Dose Response Specialty Group focuses on the relationships between underlying causal mechanisms for toxic effects, population dose response relationships (including interindividual variability), and implications for regulatory choices. We are interested in probabilistic methods to assist in analyzing the benefits of measures that are expected to alter population exposures to chemical, physical, and microbial hazards. We also hope to advance the integrated use of mechanistic, animal, and epidemiologic data to estimate risks at lower doses than can be directly assessed in animal toxicology or human studies. We provide opportunities for vigorous interdisciplinary exchange in our sponsored symposia and 3 teleseminars per year led by invited speakers. The teleseminars are held in March, June, and September in place of our regular monthly teleconferences at 12:00-1:00 PM (Eastern time) on the first Tuesday of the month. To join the electronic mail notification list on YahooGroups.com, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DRSG/ and hit the “Join this Group!” button. All are welcome to participate in the teleseminars and our monthly discussions of annual meeting symposia, student awards, and other business.

Ecological Risk Assessment

Ecological risk assessment concentrates on evaluating many types of human activities and other processes for their potential risks to ecological systems and the services that they provide. The classic case has been the introduction of toxic chemicals from use as pesticides or from chemical releases. Ecological risk assessment has become much broader in recent years. Risks due to invasive or non-indigenous species, genetically modified organisms, and climate change are being evaluated. In contrast to the relatively small spatial scales of past assessments, cutting edge assessments are being conducted at very large spatial scales. In addition to the calculation of risk, a major activity is how this information can be used in decision making and long-term planning. In the near term the Specialty Group is planning to hold workshops on a number of topics, including regional risk assessment, invasive species, statistical methods, and the integration of human and ecological risk assessment. All individuals with an interest in ecological risk assessment are encouraged to join, whether you are a creator of a risk assessment or a decision maker that uses this type of information.

Economics and Benefits Analysis

Risk assessments that can be integrated with economic analyses have become increasingly more important in public policy. Risk managers frequently use risk assessments in conjunction with economic analysis to aid in evaluating complex choices, but the two types of analysis are rarely combined formally into a single analysis. Although there has been much progress in recent years, it remains common for risk managers to see the risk assessment in one document and the economic analysis in a separate document, with no obvious connection between the two. The lack of an ongoing conversation between risk assessors and economists can lead to confusion and extensive delays in risk management decision making. The confusion is particularly unfortunate when we realize that, in performing a cost-benefit analysis, an economist must characterize potential trade-offs between options while taking into account countervailing risks, changes in exposure, and risk to relevant subpopulations. Thus, the cost-benefit analysis asks the same questions as the risk assessment. Yet, cost-benefit analyses and risk assessments often derive different answers to what are fundamentally the same questions, leading to confusion where there should be enlightenment. The Economics and Benefits Analysis Specialty Group serves as a bridge between economics and risk assessment within the Society for Risk Analysis. In that role, we try to bring economic analysis and risk assessment into a single risk management conversation. Our goal is to see risk analyses where the risk assessment and the cost-benefit analysis fit together seamlessly. We encourage our specialty group members and the wider SRA membership to think about the current disciplinary barriers to achieving this goal, and what we can do to break through those barriers.

Emerging Nanoscale Materials

The overarching goals of the Emerging Nanoscale Materials Specialty Group are to: facilitate the exchange of ideas and knowledge among practitioners, researchers, scholars, teachers, and others interested in risk analysis and emerging nanoscale materials; encourage collaborative research on risk analysis and emerging nanoscale materials; and provide leadership and play an active role in advancing issues related to risk analysis and emerging nanoscale materials.

Engineering and Infrastructure

The Engineering and Infrastructure Specialty Group supports SRA members in addressing risk analysis for a variety of engineering topics including energy, homeland security, environmental protection and pollution prevention, nanotechnologies, transportation, military operations, disaster preparedness and response, technology regulation, water and wastewater, soil, air, analytical methods, and others. The E&I Specialty Group sponsors best student paper awards, encourages engineering submissions for the journal Risk Analysis, pursues joint activities with engineering professional societies, and invites and reviews engineering papers for the annual meeting.

Exposure Assessment

The Exposure Assessment Specialty Group is comprised of Society for Risk Analysis members who are interested in the role of exposure assessment in risk analysis. Open to all members, the Group promotes and fosters independent and collaborative research in all facets of exposure science to advance the state of the art and serves as a resource to the Society in matters concerning the role of exposure in risk analysis.

Risk Communication

The Risk Communication Specialty Group (RCSG), founded in 1990, focuses on the communication of risk information between technical and lay audiences and is open to all members of the Society for Risk Analysis. Our membership represents a variety of theoretical and practical perspectives on risk communication. Members' interest areas include the perception of risk, public participation, mass media coverage of risk, trust and credibility, social influence, and evaluation related to risk communication activities.

Risk Policy and Law

The Risk, Policy & Law (RP&L) Specialty Group of the Society for Risk Analysis is a group of scientists, social scientists, lawyers, engineers and others interested in the interface between risk analysis, public policy and laws. The RP&L Specialty Group was formerly called the “Risk, Science & Law” Specialty Group; it changed its name in 2006. The group’s goal is to support collaborative research and dialogue to identify and illuminate issues that arise from risk-related legislative acts, regulatory rules, treaties, oversight and review mechanisms, judicial proceedings, and other legal institutions. The group regularly organizes a symposium session at the annual SRA meeting, including recent symposia on executive oversight of risk regulation in the U.S. and Europe.

The group also engages in occasional collaborative research projects. For example, members of the specialty group prepared a casebook of risk court cases over a period of several years.

New Developments

The RP&L executive committee is working on ideas for next year’s symposium and a possible continuing education workshop for next year’s SRA meeting. If you would like to be involved in this planning effort, or have other ideas for activities you’d like to see the group engage in, please contact RP&L chair, Sandy Hoffmann.

Major Past Projects

One of the group's major past projects was an casebook of risk-based legal decisions, which is ongoing and cumulative. The group's goal was to collect and synopsize the key cases that involved risk analysis and to organize and present key historical cases as well as topical developments to make them more accessible and useful to legal and scientific risk practitioners. In October 2000, the group published the full text of its 1998 casebook online (see menu). Selected excerpts from the 1999-2000 casebook also are online. Go to Casebook.