Events

A Risk Assessment Specialist Interest Group Initiative

The assessment of human exposure to soil contaminants often focuses on established pathways such as fruit and vegetable consumption. However, backyard chickens are a common feature of many urban and rural households, and the potential for contaminants to accumulate in eggs is frequently overlooked in site-specific risk assessments.

Certain contaminants can bioaccumulate in chickens and transfer into eggs, creating a pathway for human exposure through consumption. Understanding when this pathway may be relevant, the contaminants most likely to drive risk, and the data required to support a robust assessment is important for informed risk management.

Assessing the chicken egg consumption pathway presents a range of challenges, including identifying relevant exposure pathways for chickens, understanding contaminant uptake and transfer, and addressing uncertainty in available data. A range of mathematical models are available to estimate egg concentrations, calculate human health risks, and derive acceptable soil concentrations, but their application requires careful consideration of site-specific conditions.

In this webinar, our speakers will explore:

• Contaminants that are most likely to bioaccumulate in chickens and drive human health risks.
• Exposure pathways relevant to contaminant uptake by backyard chickens.
• Data requirements for assessing the chicken egg consumption pathway.
• Sources of uncertainty and approaches for improving confidence in assessments.
• Models used to estimate contaminant concentrations in eggs and calculate risks.
• Approaches for deriving acceptable soil concentrations based on egg consumption.

Practical examples will demonstrate when the chicken egg consumption pathway should be considered, how available data can be used to reduce uncertainty, and how modelling approaches can support site-specific risk assessments.

This webinar will be particularly valuable for contaminated land practitioners, environmental scientists, risk assessors, regulators, and consultants. A live Q&A will follow, and the session will be recorded.