Success Stories

ORAU Evaluates Formaldehyde Risks through Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS)

Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) helps provide consistent and authoritative information on chemicals that pose public health threats in the workplace, home and outdoors.

During 2007, concerns surfaced about the presence of elevated levels of formaldehyde in the air of temporary housing units. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Federal Emergency Management Agency worked to address those specific issues, ORAU teamed with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to update and evaluate information on formaldehyde in
EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS).

IRIS is an electronic database containing information on human health effects that may result from exposure to various chemicals in the environment. ORAU has been a partner with the EPA since 2003 in managing and updating IRIS in response to a growing demand for consistent information on chemical substances for use in risk assessments, decision-making, and regulatory activities.

ORAU assisted the EPA in updating or evaluating 40 chemicals, including formaldehyde, which is a suspected carcinogen found in smog, tobacco products, gas cookers, open fireplaces, manufactured
wood products, and household sources. Its uncertain human health implications, including cancer risk, is of ongoing concern to the EPA.

The more than 500 summaries in IRIS consider existing scientific information on the human health and toxicological consequences of a chemical. IRIS also contains quantitative toxicity values that are used by environmental professionals in risk assessments carried out as part of clean-up projects, such as those taking place under the federally-funded Superfund program to clean up the nation's uncontrolled hazardous waste sites.

Not only are IRIS’ assessments and data used primarily by environmental professionals in the United States, but contractors and agencies in other countries have shown interest in its capabilities.