Cincinnati Office

The National Center for Environmental Assessment's (NCEA) Cincinnati Division is a scientific center of excellence dedicated to the development and application of methods to assess human health and ecological risks associated with environmental pollutants. NCEA-Cincinnati focuses primarily on activities that support the Office of Water and the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response.

Focal areas of research (includes the development of methods and guidance, and their application to case study assessments):

• mixtures risk assessment
• microbial risk assessment
• causal relationships in ecological risk assessment
• scientific assessment support

Emerging area of research:

• Environmental economics (integrates ecological and human health risk assessments with economic analysis to support decisions)

In addition, the Division performs assessments of the toxicity of individual chemicals and the pathogenicity of individual microbes for the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) data base and for specific programmatic and regional needs. Superfund technical support centers for human health and ecology provide guidance in response to requests from regional risk assessors and the program office.