Building capacity in risk-benefit assessment of foods: Lessons learned from the RB4EU project
Résumé
Background:Human diet may present both risks and benefits to consumers’ health. Risk-benefit assessment offoods (RBA) intends to estimate the overall health impact associated with exposure (or lack of exposure) to aparticular food or food component.Scopeandapproach:“RiskBenefit4EU – Partnering to strengthen the risk-benefit assessment within EU using aholistic approach” (RB4EU) is a project funded by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) that integrates amultidisciplinary team from Portugal, Denmark and France. This project aims to strengthen the EU capacity toassess and integrate food risks and benefits regarding toxicology, microbiology and nutrition. One of the specificobjectives of RB4EU was to build capacity in RBA among the recipient partners from Portugal. In order toachieve this objective, a capacity building strategy including theoretical and hands-on training and the devel-opment of a case-study were established. This paper aims to present the strategy used in the RB4EU project tobuild capacity within RBA, including the main training approaches and the lessons learned.Keyfindingsandconclusions:The capacity-building program included three main activities: theoretical training,focusing on RBA concepts; hands-on training, applying the acquired concepts to a concrete case-study, using themethods and tools displayed; and scientific missions, intending to provide advanced training in specific domainsof RBA. The developed strategy can be used in the future to build capacity within RBA