The Pebble Remains in the Master's Hand: Two Careers Spent Learning (Still) from John Evans

In this article, we discuss four vexing problems in risk-based decision making that John Evans has addressed over the last nearly 40 years and has perennially challenged the two of us and others to think about. We tackle the role in decision making of potential thresholds in dose-response functions, how the lack of health reference values for many chemicals may distort risk management, the challenge of model uncertainty for risk characterization, and the yet-untapped potential for value-of-information analysis to enhance public health decision making. Our theme is that work remains to be done on each of these, but that some of that work would merely involve listening to ideas that John has already offered.

Automated summary

This article discusses four challenging issues in risk-based decision making, including the role of potential thresholds in dose-response functions, the lack of health reference values for many chemicals distorting risk management, model uncertainty as a challenge for risk characterization, and the untapped potential of value-of-information analysis in enhancing public health decision making. Further research is needed on these issues, but some solutions may already exist in the ideas proposed by John.