Human and Ecological Risk Office

Note that the CURRENT GUIDANCE FOR HUMAN HEALTH RISK ASSESSMENT, including the Preliminary Endangerment Assessment (PEA) Guidance, and other guidance and Human Health Risk Assessment Notes are available on the HERO Human Health Risk Page at: https://dtsc.ca.gov/human-health-risk-hero/

The following guidance and tools are no longer supported and are being provided for archival purposes only, and are not necessarily endorsements or recommendations of these products.  It is also the responsibility of the user to utilize updated toxicity criteria and exposure parameters. The HERO toxicologist for the project should be consulted regarding which guidance and tools are applicable.

Human Health Risk Assessment Guidance

Archived Supplemental Guidance for Human Health Multimedia Risk Assessments of Hazardous Waste Sites and Permitted Facilities.  This Guidance is no longer active and is for archival purposes only.  Do not cite or quote. 

This archived guidance is available at: https://dtsc.ca.gov/supplemental-guidance-for-human-health-multimedia-risk-assessments-of-hazardous-waste-sites-and-permitted-facilities/

This Guidance is no longer active and is for archival purposes only. Do not cite or quote.

• Download Archived Human Health Risk Assessment Note 7

Evaluating Human Health Risks for Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons (TPH) – Interim Guidance.

This guidance document is currently in revision and is no longer active.  The revised document will be posted to the HERO Human Health Risk Assessment Page when revisions are complete.

The evaluation of TPH is discussed in the Preliminary Endangerment Assessment Guidance Manual, Revised October 2013.

Human Health Risk Assessment Tools

Johnson & Ettinger (J&E) Screening Models

The DTSC Screening-Level Model spreadsheets that used the Johnson & Ettinger (J&E) model to predict theoretical indoor air concentrations of contaminants from soil gas and groundwater data have been removed because they were not updated and are not based on the most current J&E model spreadsheet tool from USEPA.

• Download Archived HERO Soil Gas Screening Model
• Download Archived HERO Groundwater Screening Model

CalTOX

CalTOX is a spreadsheet model that relates the concentration of a chemical in soil to the risk of an adverse health effect for a person living or working on or near the contaminated soil. CalTOX computes site-specific health-based soil clean-up concentrations given target risk levels or human health risks given soil concentrations at the site.  CalTOX is no longer supported and is being provided for archival purposes only. It is the responsibility of the user to utilize updated toxicity criteria

• Download CalTOX
• Download CalTOX Documentation
• Note that downloading Microsoft Excel Viewer may help to view this older software

Page last updated April 15, 2019