Insights
Tuesday, January 6, 2026 DALY USEtox human toxicity LCA methodology health impact assessment comparative toxicity assessment CTUh epidemiological metrics chemical safety disability-adjusted life years
How USEtox Human Toxicity Assessment Borrows Epidemiological Language for Comparative Indices. In public health, DALY means "years of life lost"—a measure of real disease burden in populations. In LCA, "DALY" appears in USEtox scores as a comparative lifecycle index with 1-3 orders of magnitude uncertainty. Same acronym, fundamentally incompatible meanings. When toxicologists see "15.3 DALY," they interpret real health impacts. What the score actually represents: a persistence-intake-toxicity ranking metric that cannot answer "Is this safe?"
Tuesday, December 30, 2025 PAF USEtox ecotoxicity aquatic toxicity assessment
Secondary keywords: species sensitivity distribution CTUe ecosystem impact metrics comparative ecotoxicity PAF interpretation in LCA potentially affected fraction confusion USEtox ecotoxicity limitations
This short article concerns the interpretation of the USEtox unit used for the aquatic toxicity impact category used in LCA/PEF. A follow up article will address the use of DALY for the human impact assessment category.