Next generation risk assessment and new approach methodologies for safe and sustainable by design chemicals and materials: Perspectives and challenges for occupational health

Europe is facing increasingly challenging threats to health and well-being, including chemical pollution, climate change, and biodiversity loss. To counter such threats, the European Union has developed a series of policy strategies, including the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability and the Zero Pollution Action Plan that pointed out the need for safe-and-sustainable-by-design (SSbD) chemicals/materials. The SSbD and the “zero pollution” ambition will inevitably lead to a transformation of the conditions of exposure to chemicals both in general living environments and workplaces with the consequent need to adequately anticipate and manage the chemical risk, starting from the assessment of the hazard and risk characterization. Among those, next generation risk assessment (NGRA) is defined as a human-relevant, exposure-led, hypothesis driven risk assessment approach, designed to prevent harm. To date, application of NGRA has been restricted to assessing the use of cosmetics, and it has not been implemented in occupational risk assessment. Occupational safety assessment represents an area that would benefit from increasing application of NGRA to safety decision making. Additionally, the application of new approach methodologies (NAMs) can support the generation of data useful to implement the operationalization of the SSbD framework, favorably impacting the adoption of suitable management strategies. In turn, the historical occupational preventive and protective approach to the health and safety of workers may provide support to adequately implement NGRA in the occupational context. Therefore, this work aims to provide an overview on the principal available NAMs and their possible implications for occupational chemical risk assessment and management.