Using an Integrated, Multi-disciplinary Framework to Support Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessments

The Framework for Risk Analysis in Multimedia Environmental Systems (FRAMES) provides the infrastructure to link disparate models and databases seamlessly, giving an assessor the ability to construct an appropriate conceptual site model from a host of modeling choices, so a number of modeling analyses can be supported and reproduced. FRAMES is a Windows-based system that can incorporate and communicate with a array of software models and databases and that is uniquely designed to allow users, by themselves, to visualize the problem and add and link disparate models – even older legacy models – and databases to the system. Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment (QMRA) is a modeling approach that integrates a wide range of disparate data, including fate/transport, exposure, and human health effects’ relationships, to characterize potential health impacts/risks from exposure to pathogenic microorganisms. Although QMRA does not preclude the use of source-term and fate and transport models, it most commonly has been applied where the “source term” is represented by the receptor location (i.e., exposure point), meaning that the full potential of a QMRA has not been realized traditionally. This paper describes unique attributes of FRAMES and demonstrates how open-system architecture can be used to link disparate models and databases to support a QMRA application, while addressing multiple microbial source types and organisms that impact downstream receptors.