abstract
The surveillance of chemical substances in the scope of Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) is classically performed through bio-assays from which data are collected and then modelled. Some statistical analysis base on the fitting of toxicokinetic (TK) models to assess the bioaccumulative capacity of chemical substances via the estimation of bioaccumulation metrics as required by regulatory documents. Given that bio-assays are particularly expensive and time consuming, it is of crucial importance to deeply benefit from all information contained in the data. By revisiting the calculation of bioaccumulation metrics under a Bayesian framework, this paper presents improvements in the classification of the bioaccumulative capacity of chemical substances. A meta-analysis of a data-rich TK database was performed, considering the uncertainties around the bioaccumulation metrics. The subsequent results appeared sufficiently statistically robust to propose the replacement of the single median estimate to decide of the class to which assign a chemical substance. The main recommendation is to use the 75th percentile of the uncertainty interval of the bioaccumulation metrics, which revealed a better criterion to classify a chemical substance, and in the same way as the conventional method in 90% of cases.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.