Science CommunicationsToxCast Communications & Outreach Strategy

Presented by:

Monica Linnenbrink Strategic Communications & Outreach Lead for Chemical Safety Research

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency/Office of Research and Development

Email: Linnenbrink.Monica@epa.gov

www.epa.gov/research/chemicalscience

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Presentation Overview

•Background

•Approach

•Strategic, targeted & step-by-step outreach activities

•Feedback & Results

Background

• Toxicity Forecaster (ToxCast) research effort released high-throughput screening data on 1,800 chemicals in December 2013. Chemicals were screened in over 700 high-throughput screening assays.

•As part of EPA’s commitment to transparency, all data is accessible through the Chemical Safety for Sustainability Dashboard (iCSS).

• EPA recognized communications and outreach was needed to aid with the acceptance and trust of new scientific data.

Communications and Outreach Approach

• Communicating with stakeholders multiple times, using strategically selected and step-by-step outreach activities

• Helping stakeholders become comfortable with the new data by providing demonstrations and tutorials

• Requesting feedback from stakeholders and continually incorporating the feedback, letting stakeholders know when feedback is incorporated

• Targeting scientific community and stakeholders who could use data including academia, industry, other US Federal Agencies, State Environmental Agencies, International Gov’t Agencies, NGOs such as Environmental Defense Fund, etc 4

Strategic, Step-by-Step Communications

• Webinars and demonstrations for key stakeholders prior to public data release.

• Public announcement of data release with news release, blogs, social media, etc.

• Two workshops where EPA scientists gave stakeholders an overview of new data and to provided hands-on demonstrations

• As requested, hosted webinars tailored to their needs

• Sponsored exhibit booths at scientific conferences to provide hands-on demonstrations

• Hosted Data Summit for stakeholders to present their ideas for applications of the new data

• Throughout, request stakeholder feedback to make improvements

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Webinars & Demos

Discussions with key stakeholders prior to releasing the data and targeted webinars after release

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Office of Management and Budget Dashboard Briefing 12/20/2013 7

iCSS Dashboard and ToxCast Data Overview (Communities of Practice) 12/12/2013 78

Overview of ToxCast Data and Dashboard Before Public Release (partners with signed research agreement)

9/19/2013 64

FDA ToxCast Data and Dashboard Overview 9/11/2013 27

Presentations and discussions with EPA Program Offices such as Office of Water and EPA’s Endocrine Disruption Screening Program

Ongoing Targeted

Presentations and discussions with the Environmental Defense Fund, American Chemistry Council (& its members), Humane Society, PETA, LOREAL

OngoingTargeted

Presentations and discussions with Health Canada, California EPA Ongoing Targeted

Announce the public release of data

December 2013: Released new data and iCSSDashboard publicly

• Announced through news releases, blogs, social media, fact sheets, external web pages, webinars, at scientific conferences

• Workshop registration opened and Data Summit announced

• Requested stakeholder feedback via email, through webinars and continually encouraged participation in outreach events

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Scientific Media Coverage including C&EN. Others BNA, Greenwire, Chemical Watch, Environmental Leader, Scientific American, NC NPR

Stakeholder Workshops

•Workshop #1 held January 2014 in Research Triangle Park, NC

•Workshop #2 held April 2014 at an FDA facility in Washington, DC area

•EPA scientists provided overview of newly released data and stakeholders provided feedback

•Stakeholders participated in one-on-one demos to become familiar with new data (Genius bars)

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27%

66%

7%

Workshop improved understanding of data/tools and

use of them

Strongly Agree

Agree

Undecided

Disagree

Strongly Disagree

Workshop Feedback

Feedback for Dashboard

• Better instructions/user guide**

• Improved assay descriptions**

• Ability to filter a group of manually

selected chemicals

• Raw data points (vs. averages)

• Selection buttons on left are confusing**

• Demo videos to show interest in one

chemical and a group of chemicals

• Link on DB to get to raw data

Feedback for Workshop

• Demos were great!

• Less Q/A at the end, as the questions after

each talk was sufficient

• Case study or group exercise would be

nice to go through motions of using DB

• More discussion of:

• How these tools can be used

• Future changes to DB

Stakeholders who analyzed ToxCast Data used it for:

• Allergenicity of Chemicals

• Inference for Benign Molecular Design

• +/- control chemicals for NR activation to compare to their data

• Use lists for determining possible Endocrine System disruption

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Data Summit

•Held in Research Triangle Park September 29-30, 2013

• Stakeholders presented their ideas for using and analyzing data through keynote and poster presentations

•Over 300 stakeholders participated (in-person and via webinar)

EPA’s Assistant Administrator explains his vision for using new data to prioritize chemicals for potential endocrine disruption

Data Summit Feedback

• Stakeholder (Suggestions for Improvement)

• ToxCast Data: Define acronyms, assay descriptions, downloads by use, online examples, provide LEL and EMAX summaries, plain language, explanation of how data was processed, provide dates of release, metadata,

• iCSS Dashboard: improved filtering, listen to stakeholders, export feature is tricky, add assay descriptions, training video

Responding to Feedback

• Training video with case studies now available (more being developed)

•New chemical data files recently released with assay descriptions, descriptions of how data is processed (continuing to work to improve)

•Added break-out groups to Data Summit about database updates

•More stakeholder workshops planned for 2015

Results: Stakeholder Surveys

Very Good12.12%

Good60.61%

Barely Acceptable

21.21%

Poor6.06%

I WOULD RATE THE USABILITY OF THE ICSSDASHBOARD AS:

Results: Stakeholder Surveys

Very Good12.90%

Good58.06%

Barely Acceptable29.03%

I WOULD RATE THE QUALITY OF THE DATA FOR SUBSEQUENT ANALYSIS AS:

Results: ToxCast Usage Data

Results: iCSS Dashboard Usage

Thank-you!

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Supplemental Slides if needed

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Highlighted Conferences & Events Featuring CSS

• SOT Future Tox II (January 2014): EPA scientist Co-chair of organizing committee and featured presentations and posters about CSS research.

• Society of Toxicology (March 2014): Featured presentations and posters about CSS research. EPA booth and demonstrations of CSS databases, models and tools.

• ACS Green Chemistry Institute’s Annual Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference (June 2014): CSS NPD Co-chair of organizing committee, CSS Deputy part of organizing committee, featured presentations and posters about CSS research. EPA booth promoting research.

• International Society for Exposure Science (October 2013 and 2014 planned): Organizing committee chair is an EPA/NERL Division Director. Will feature presentations and posters about CSS research. EPA booth and demonstrations of database, models and tools.

• Society for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry Conference (November 2013 and 2014 planned): Feature presentations and posters about CSS research. EPA booth and demonstrations of CSS databases, models and tools.

• ACC briefings about AOP Wiki (September 2013) and iCSS Dashboard (July 2013): Briefed American Chemistry Council about AOP Wiki and iCSS Dashboard.

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51%

3%6%

6%

20%

3%

5%

6%

ToxCast Stakeholder Workshop January 14 2014

EPA ORD

EPA Program Office/Region

Academia

Federal Government, non-EPA

Industry

International Government

Media

NGO

State Government

Not ProvidedTOTAL: 85

ToxCast Stakeholder Participation

13%

18%

4%

23%

24%

1%

1%

7%

5%4%

ToxCast Stakeholder April Workshop EPA ORD

EPA Program Office/Region

Academia

Federal Government, non-EPA

Industry

International Government

Media

NGO

State Government

Not ProvidedTOTAL:277

ToxCast Stakeholder Workshop Participation

Data Summit

Academia10% Consultant/Contractor

10%

EPA Program Office7%

EPA Researchers28%Other US

Federal Gov't13%

Industry14%

International Gov't

4%

Media1% NGOs

9%

State Environmental Agency

4%

Data Summit Participants

Academia

Consultant/Contractor

Program Office

EPA Researchers

Other US Federal Gov't

Industry

International Gov't

Media

NGOs

State Environmental Agency

Total: 304

Workshop Feedback

60%

13%

27%

ToxCast Data

Very Satisfied

Satisfied

Neither Satisfied or Dissatisfied

Dissatisfied

Very Dissatisfied

Have not Used

13%

34%

20%

33%

iCSS Dashboard

Very Satisfied

Satisfied

Neither Satisfied or Dissatisfied

Dissatisfied

Very Dissatisfied

Have not Used

27%

66%

7%

Workshop improved understanding of

data/tools and use of them

Strongly Agree Agree

Undecided Disagree

Strongly Disagree