The new European information system (EIS-CHEMRISKS) for assessing exposures from consumer products in the indoor environment

Information is needed about the overall nature of the reasonably foreseeable exposures fromconsumer products, including intended exposures of chemicals released into the air by design(e.g. fragrance materials), and other inhalation, dermal, and oral exposures arising from theuse of consumer products (CPs) in the indoor environment. For example, important factors forassessing exposure to, and uptake from indoor emissions from CPs include the design,fabrication, and storage of CPs, the consumers choice of and attitude towards a CP,physiological parameters, use and time-activity patterns, human contact rates, preventivemeasures associated with usage, and the use of aftercare solvents and other chemicalsassociated with the care and cleaning of a CP. The availability of relevant scenarios andhuman and residential exposure factors help to estimate exposures, as would access to directmonitoring and other CP testing and modelling methods. This paper discusses the abovetopics, their interfaces, and introduces a new European Union (EU)-wide effort from theEuropean Commissions Institute for Health and Consumer Protection. This is the EuropeanInformation System on Chemical Risks (EIS-CHEMRISKS), a multi-stakeholder effort toprovide publicly available Web pages including scenarios, exposure factors, methods, andother information needed for the assessment of chemical emissions from products/articles.