Overview of Limitations, Conclusions, and Recommendations for Public Health Actions

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This section provides an overview of how to present the conclusions, recommendations, and public health actions resulting from evaluations conducted during the PHA process. It explains how to assign a conclusion category to your findings, how to handle situations with insufficient or limited data, and how to cover the limitations or uncertainty in your conclusions and recommendations.

After completing the scientific evaluations conducted during the PHA process, the site team will characterize the degree of public health hazard at the site. Health assessors will consider the following factors to determine limitations, conclusions, and recommendations for public health actions:

  • The limitations identified throughout the PHA process, such as those related to sampling, data, statistics, and exposure conditions
  • The existence of past, current, or potential future exposures to site-specific contaminants (including radionuclides) or physical or safety hazards
  • The susceptibility of the potentially exposed population
  • The likelihood of exposures resulting in harmful health effects
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Overview of ATSDR’s Process for Developing Conclusions and Recommendations

This diagram shows the process for developing conclusions and recommendations.

Description of Process for Developing Conclusions and Recommendations