Application of multi-criteria decision analysis techniques and decision support framework for informing plant select agent designation and decision making

Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology

Bioengineering and Biotechnology

Segaran P. Pillai¹  Stephen A. Morse²  Todd West³  Kevin Anderson⁴  Cameron Ball⁵  Julia Fruetel⁵  Nataly Beck⁵  Patricia Hernandez⁵  Carrie McNeil⁵ 

[1] Office of the Commissioner, Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, MD, United States;U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, DC, United States;Retired, Atlanta, GA, United States;Retired, Livermore, CA, United States;Retired, Palmetto, FL, United States;Sandia National Laboratories, U.S. Department of Energy, Livermore, CA, United States;

关键词: multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA);    decision support framework (DSF);    plant select agents;    biennial review;    risk assessment tool;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fbioe.2023.1234238

 received in 2023-06-03, accepted in 2023-08-18,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Division of Agricultural Select Agents and Toxins (DASAT) established a list of biological agents (Select Agents List) that threaten crops of economic importance to the United States and regulates the procedures governing containment, incident response, and the security of entities working with them. Every 2 years the USDA DASAT reviews their select agent list, utilizing assessments by subject matter experts (SMEs) to rank the agents. We explored the applicability of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) techniques and a decision support framework (DSF) to support the USDA DASAT biennial review process. The evaluation includes both current and non-select agents to provide a robust assessment. We initially conducted a literature review of 16 pathogens against 9 criteria for assessing plant health and bioterrorism risk and documented the findings to support this analysis. Technical review of published data and associated scoring recommendations by pathogen-specific SMEs was found to be critical for ensuring accuracy. Scoring criteria were adopted to ensure consistency. The MCDA supported the expectation that select agents would rank high on the relative risk scale when considering the agricultural consequences of a bioterrorism attack; however, application of analytical thresholds as a basis for designating select agents led to some exceptions to current designations. A second analytical approach used agent-specific data to designate key criteria in a DSF logic tree format to identify pathogens of low concern that can be ruled out for further consideration as select agents. Both the MCDA and DSF approaches arrived at similar conclusions, suggesting the value of employing the two analytical approaches to add robustness for decision making.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
Copyright © 2023 Pillai, Fruetel, West, Anderson, Hernandez, Ball, McNeil, Beck and Morse.