The Weight-of-Evidence Approach and the Need for Greater International Acceptance of Its Use in Tackling Questions of Chemical Harm to the Environment

Abstract

© 2021 The Authors. As we attempt to manage chemicals in the environment we need to be sure that our research efforts are being directed at the substances of greatest threat. All too often we focus on a chemical of concern and then cast around for evidence of its effects in an unstructured way. Risk assessment based on laboratory ecotoxicity studies, combined with field chemical measurements, can only take us so far. Uncertainty about the range and sufficiency of evidence required to take restorative action often puts policymakers in a difficult situation. We review this conundrum and reflect on how the “Hill criteria,” used widely by epidemiologists, have been applied to a weight-of-evidence approach (a term sometimes used interchangeably with ecoepidemiology) to build a case for causation. While using a set of such criteria to address sites of local environmental distress has been embraced by the US Environmental Protection Agency, we urge a wider adoption of weight-of-evidence approaches by policymakers, regulators, and scientists worldwide. A simplified series of criteria is offered. Progress will require a sustained commitment to long-term wildlife and chemical monitoring over a sufficient geographic spread. Development of a comprehensive monitoring network, coupled with assembling evidence of harm in a structured manner, should be the foundation for protecting our ecosystems and human health. This will enable us to not only judge the success or failure of our efforts but also diagnose underlying causes. Environ Toxicol Chem 2021;00:1–10. © 2021 The Authors. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of SETAC.