Guidance on risk–benefit assessment of foods

Simon John More, Diane Benford, Susanne Hougaard Bennekou, Vasileios Bampidis, Claude Bragard, Thorhallur Ingi Halldorsson, Antonio F. Hernández-Jerez, Kostas Koutsoumanis, Claude Lambré, Kyriaki Machera, Ewen Mullins, Søren Saxmose Nielsen, Josef Schlatter, Dieter Schrenk, Dominique Turck, Androniki Naska, Morten Poulsen, Jukka Ranta, Salomon Sand, Heather WallaceMaria Bastaki, Djien Liem, Anthony Smith, Ermolaos Ververis, Giorgia Zamariola, Maged Younes, EFSA Scientific Committee

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Abstract

The EFSA Scientific Committee has updated its 2010 Guidance on risk?benefit assessment (RBA) of foods. The update addresses methodological developments and regulatory needs. While it retains the stepwise RBA approach, it provides additional methods for complex assessments, such as multiple chemical hazards and all relevant health effects impacting different population subgroups. The updated guidance includes approaches for systematic identification, prioritisation and selection of hazardous and beneficial food components. It also offers updates relevant to characterising adverse and beneficial effects, such as measures of effect size and dose?response modelling. The guidance expands options for characterising risks and benefits, incorporating variability, uncertainty, severity categorisation and ranking of different (beneficial or adverse) effects. The impact of different types of health effects is assessed qualitatively or quantitatively, depending on the problem formulation, scope of the RBA question and data availability. The integration of risks and benefits often involves value-based judgements and should ideally be performed with the risk?benefit manager. Metrics such as Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) and Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) can be used. Additional approaches are presented, such as probability of all relevant effects and/or effects of given severities and their integration using severity weight functions. The update includes practical guidance on reporting results, interpreting outcomes and communicating the outcome of an RBA, considering consumer perspectives and responses to advice.
Original languageEnglish
Article numbere8875
JournalEFSA Journal
Volume22
Issue number7
Number of pages59
ISSN1831-4732
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024

Keywords

  • benefit–risk
  • food safety
  • RBA
  • risk ranking
  • risk–benefit
  • risk–benefit assessment
  • risk–benefit communication

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