Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment

The first complete guide to the quantitative assessment of risks to humans posed by infectious agents in all environmental media. Recent highly-publicized infectious disease outbreaks in the United States and abroad have engendered mounting political pressure to require the use of quantitative techniques in the assessment of the risks of human exposure to an array of microorganisms. While traditional indicator methods for pathogen assessment and control have always left much to be desired, it is only with the advent of modern microbial methods that it is now possible to establish rigorous testing protocols for infectious agents comparable to those in place for chemical agents and other contaminants. A book whose time has come, Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment equips environmental and public health professionals with the knowledge and skills they need to comply with the rapidly growing demand for quantitative risk testing of infectious agents. Authored by an interdisciplinary team of experts from the fields of environmental engineering, marine science, and soil and water science, this is the first comprehensive guide to state-of-the-art quantitative microbial risk assessment methods. It provides you with: Exhaustive coverage of potential infectious agents and their modes of transmission. Systematic presentations of quantitative risk, hazard, and exposure assessment techniques. Numerous worked examples throughout the book. Fascinating case studies illustrating the application of quantitative methods to various situations. Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment is an important working resource for professionals in the fields of environmental health, environmental engineering, public health, and microbiology. It is also an excellent graduate-level text for students of those disciplines.

Provides the latest QMRA methodologies to determine infection risk cause by either accidental microbial infections or deliberate infections caused by terrorism • Reviews the latest methodologies to quantify at every step of the microbial exposure pathways, from the first release of a pathogen to the actual human infection • Provides techniques on how to gather information, on how each microorganism moves through the environment, how to determine their survival rates on various media, and how people are exposed to the microorganism • Explains how QMRA can be used as a tool to measure the impact of interventions and identify the best policies and practices to protect public health and safety • Includes new information on genetic methods • Techniques use to develop risk models for drinking water, groundwater, recreational water, food and pathogens in the indoor environment