President Biden recently signed an Executive Order focused on the Federal Government's commitment to enhance and promote environmental justice. One focus of the Executive Order is to direct agencies to advance the analysis of cumulative impacts. Tribal communities may be at greater risk of exposure to contamination than the general population because of greater interaction with the natural environment; subsistence diets; fixed boundaries of reservations; and confounding equity issues. For these reasons, risk assessments that do not consider the cumulative impacts of both contaminant and non-contaminant stressors will fail to fully characterize health risk to Tribal Nations. During this session we will share examples, ideas, and considerations for incorporating cumulative risk into Tribal risk assessments. We will also discuss developing a Tribal monitoring program that is responsive to accumulating information that can be used for contaminants and be factored into a risk assessment. The goal of this session is to provide a broader understanding of cumulative risk assessment and to stimulate discussion and engagement on this topic.
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