EU register HBLV

As part of its “one substance, one assessment” approach, the European Commission is planning a centralized, structured database for health-based limit values (HBLVs). This database will make it easy to access all relevant HBLVs in one place.

In collaboration with Novamechanics Ltd., a team of scientists from Fraunhofer ITEM worked on designing, developing and planning the implementation of this register. The Fraunhofer researchers mapped all the available human, animal and environmental HBLVs from EUCLEF, OpenFoodTox, the EU Pesticides Database and an online survey of the register’s future users. Overall, they identified 128 HBLVs and provided background information and associated metadata for each of these, so that they could then identify the relevant limit values.

In the online survey, future users of the register were asked about usage patterns and their needs and requirements, and their responses were then analyzed. The results of the mapping step were combined with the findings from the survey to create an initial list of the limit values and metadata that must be included in the future register. Novamechanis Ltd. drafted the register’s structure, functionalities and metadata framework. This included ensuring data reusability and quality assessment. In addition, processes were established for maintaining and updating the database and for involving the most important EU authorities.

On this basis, the team developed an initial version of the HBLV register.