Over the past decades, the calls to improve the robustness of interpretation in forensic science have increased in magnitude. Forensic toxicology has seen limited progress in this regard. In this work, we propose a transparent interpretive pathway for use in post-mortem forensic toxicology cases. This process allows the selection of the interpretive methodology based on the amount of previous information that is available for the substance(s) in question. One approach is an assessment of various pharmacological and circumstantial considerations resulting in a toxicological significance score (TSS), which is particularly useful in situations where limited information about a substance is available. When there is a robust amount of case data available, then a probabilistic approach, through the evaluation of likelihood ratios (LRs) by the toxicologist and of prior probabilities by the fact-finder, is utilized. This methodology provides a transparent means of making an interpretive decision on the role of a drug in the cause of death. This will allow the field of forensic toxicology to take a step forward in using best practice in evaluative reporting, a tool already used by many other forensic science disciplines.

中文翻译：

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一种评估意见模型，旨在鼓励尸检法医毒理学解释的更大透明度和合理性。

在过去的几十年里，提高法医学解释稳健性的呼声越来越高。法医毒理学在这方面取得的进展有限。在这项工作中，我们提出了一种用于尸检法医毒理学案件的透明解释途径。此过程允许根据有关物质可用的先前信息量来选择解释方法。一种方法是评估各种药理学和环境因素，得出毒理学显着性评分 (TSS)，这在有关物质的信息有限的情况下特别有用。当有大量可用的病例数据时，就会采用概率方法，通过毒理学家评估似然比 (LR) 和事实发现者评估先验概率。该方法提供了一种透明的方法，可以对药物在死因中的作用做出解释性决定。这将使法医毒理学领域在评估报告中使用最佳实践方面向前迈出一步，这是许多其他法医科学学科已经使用的工具。