Expert elicitation: methodological suggestions for its use in environmental health impact assessments

Abstract

This document contains three parts: (1) an introduction, (2) an overview with building blocks and methodological suggestions for a formal expert elicitation procedure; and (3) a literature list with key sources of information used and suggestions for further reading. A glossary is provided in Appendix 1. Part one starts with the scope and aim of this document, and continues with a brief introduction to the issue of uncertainty in environmental Health Impact Assessments. The potential usefulness of expert elicitation in exploring particular uncertainties is then issued, thereby focusing on quantifiable input for which no reliable data is available (uncertain quantities), such as a particular exposure-response-function. Part two is intended as guidance to build a formal (i.e. well-developed, structured, systematic, transparent, traceable, and documented) expert elicitation procedure that is tailored to the particular research question and the uncertainties at hand. To this end, an overview (Figure 1) and possible basic building blocks are provided. For each building block, methodological suggestions are provided with a view to refer the reader to a range (variety) of possible methods. Yet this overview does not claim to be exhaustive nor representative of all published methodologies for expert elicitation.