Toward a minimum data set for assessing the risks of activities involved with nanomaterials

Despite their applications in various industries, researches have shown that nanomaterials can interact adversely with human body and the environment. So, it is necessary to assess the risks of activities involving these materials. An important step of each risk assessment process is to identify the main factors influencing the process. Firstly, factors possibly influencing risk assessment of nanomaterials were extracted from the literature. A questionnaire was designed using these factors and validated by experts in occupational health, environmental health, medical nanotechnology and health education. The questionnaire was then sent to 30 experts and they were asked to score each factor 1 to 5. Twenty-four factors affecting the risk assessment of nanomaterials were identified and divided into four groups: “nanomaterial properties”, “parent-materials properties”, “work properties” and “workplace properties”. The factors with the highest scores in each of the areas of “health”, “safety” and “the environment” were “toxicity of nanomaterial”, “reactivity of nanomaterial”, and “solubility (or stability, or biopersistency) of nanomaterial”, respectively. Based on the results, the “properties of nanomaterials” should play the most important role in assessing the risks of nanomaterials; “work properties” and “workplace characteristics” are in the next degree of importance. Accordingly, a combination of different factors (nanomaterial properties, parent-materials properties, work properties and workplace properties) seems to be appropriate to assess the risks of activities involved with nanomaterials. But which factor should be more influential in risk assessment and which one less, requires further studies.