Abstract

Background:

Although the implementation of systematic review and evidence mapping methods stands to improve the transparency and accuracy of chemical assessments, they also accentuate the challenges that assessors face in ensuring they have located and included all the evidence that is relevant to evaluating the potential health effects an exposure might be causing. This challenge of information retrieval can be characterized in terms of “semantic” and “conceptual” factors that render chemical assessments vulnerable to the streetlight effect.

Objectives:

This commentary presents how controlled vocabularies, thesauruses, and ontologies contribute to overcoming the streetlight effect in information retrieval, making up the key components of Knowledge Organization Systems (KOSs) that enable more systematic access to assessment-relevant information than is currently achievable. The concept of Adverse Outcome Pathways is used to illustrate what a general KOS for use in chemical assessment could look like.

Discussion:

Ontologies are an underexploited element of effective knowledge organization in the environmental health sciences. Agreeing on and implementing ontologies in chemical assessment is a complex but tractable process with four fundamental steps. Successful implementation of ontologies would not only make currently fragmented information about health risks from chemical exposures vastly more accessible, it could ultimately enable computational methods for chemical assessment that can take advantage of the full richness of data described in natural language in primary studies. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP6994

中文翻译：

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用于系统化学评估的知识组织系统

摘要

背景：

尽管系统审查和证据映射方法的实施可以提高化学品评估的透明度和准确性，但它们也加剧了评估人员在确保找到并纳入与评估接触的潜在健康影响相关的所有证据方面面临的挑战。可能会造成。信息检索的这一挑战可以用“语义”和“概念”因素来表征，这些因素使得化学评估容易受到路灯效应的影响。

目标：

本评论介绍了受控词汇表、同义词库和本体论如何有助于克服信息检索中的路灯效应，构成知识组织系统（KOS）的关键组成部分，使人们能够比目前更系统地访问评估相关信息。不良结果途径的概念用于说明化学评估中使用的一般 KOS 的样子。

讨论：

本体论是环境健康科学中有效知识组织中尚未充分利用的元素。在化学评估中达成一致并实施本体是一个复杂但易于处理的过程，有四个基本步骤。本体论的成功实施不仅将使目前关于化学品暴露造成的健康风险的碎片化信息变得更加容易获取，而且最终可以实现化学评估的计算方法，可以充分利用初级研究中自然语言描述的丰富数据。https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP6994