Report of IPRA workshop 2012

On the 12th and 13th of December 2012 the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) and the RIVM organized an international workshop on Integrated Probabilistic Risk Assessment (IPRA). With IPRA the risk of exposure to a substance in food is assessed in a probabilistic manner (both exposure and hazard). The tool combines two existing methods: 1) probabilistic exposure assessment and 2) the bench mark dose approach and is ready to be used. The goals of the workshop were to share knowledge and to analyse possibilities of IPRA as a methodology to assess risks of substances in food. The participants were informed on the concepts of IPRA and discussed the use, practicability and place of IPRA in risk assessment. The general opinion of the participants on the use of IPRA was that IPRA is sufficiently developed to be shared with other risk assessors, on an international level. In addition, the participants were of the opinion that risk managers can be inspired to use IPRA as a tool for refined, higher tier risk assessments.