Simulating Exposure-Related Health Effects: Basic Ideas

This is the first of four chapters that explain and apply the dynamic simulation approach to health risk assessment modeling introduced in Chap. 2 . The exposition in this chapter is motivated by an observation made by toxicologist Julie Goodman of Gradient, who coauthored the article on which this chapter is based (Cox Jr et al. 2020): most of the key ideas of the dynamic simulation approach can be explained through relatively simple diagrams, without going through the underlying equations. This chapter undertakes such a high-level diagrammatic exposition. It returns to two of the diagrams used in Chap. 2 to introduce simulation modeling, and adds further discussion and diagrams to help understand and visualize the dynamic responses of internal doses to different time patterns of exposure. Chapters 4 , 5 , and 6 and their appendices then cover the same material in much greater depth, providing the underlying systems of equations used to model biological responses to exposures to inhaled respirable crystalline silica (Chap. 4 ) and asbestos (Chap. 5 ) and highlighting the importance of nonlinearities in these responses for risk assessment and risk management (Chap. 6 ).