Background

Risk-benefit assessment (RBA) of foods aims to assess the combined negative and positive health effects associated with food intake. RBAs integrate chemical and microbiological risk assessment with risk and benefit assessment in nutrition.

Scope and Approach

Based on the past experiences and the methodological differences between the underlying research disciplines, this paper aims to describe the recent progress in RBAs, identifying the key challenges that need to be addressed for further development, and making suggestions for meeting these challenges.

Key Findings and Conclusions

Ten specific challenges are identified and discussed. They include the variety of different definitions and terminologies used in the underlying research disciplines, the differences between the “bottom-up” and the “top-down” approaches and the need for clear risk-benefit questions. The frequent lack of data and knowledge with their consequential uncertainties is considered, as well as the imbalance in the level of scientific evidence associated with health risks and benefits. The challenges that are consequential to the need of considering substitution issues are discussed, as are those related to the inclusion of microbiological hazards. Further challenges include the choice of the integrative health metrics and the potential scope of RBAs, which may go beyond the health effect. Finally, the need for more practical applications of RBA is stressed. Suggestions for meeting the identified challenges include an increased interdisciplinary consensus, reconsideration of methodological approaches and health metrics based on a categorisation of risk-benefit questions, and the performance of case studies to experience the feasibility of the proposed approaches.

中文翻译：

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应对发展食品风险效益评估的挑战

背景

食品的风险收益评估（RBA）旨在评估与食物摄入相关的负面和正面健康影响。RBA将化学和微生物风险评估与营养风险和收益评估相结合。

范围和方法

基于过去的经验和基础研究学科之间的方法论差异，本文旨在描述RBA的最新进展，确定进一步发展需要解决的关键挑战，并提出应对这些挑战的建议。

主要发现和结论

确定并讨论了十个具体挑战。它们包括基础研究学科中使用的各种不同的定义和术语，“自下而上”和“自上而下”方法之间的差异以及对明确的风险收益问题的需求。考虑到经常缺乏数据和知识以及随之而来的不确定性，以及与健康风险和益处相关的科学证据水平的不平衡。讨论了与考虑替代问题相关的挑战，以及与包括微生物危害有关的挑战。进一步的挑战包括综合健康指标的选择和RBA的潜在范围，这可能超出健康影响。最后，强调了RBA更实际应用的需求。应对已查明挑战的建议包括：加强跨学科共识，基于风险收益问题的分类重新考虑方法论方法和健康指标，以及开展案例研究以体验所提出方法的可行性。