Conducting health studies—particularly quantitative health risk assessments—to evaluate the impact of a contaminated site on populations living on or near the site requires characterizing the various environmental compartments. This step is a prerequisite for estimating population exposure to contaminants at the site. In the case of soil, feedback from the Interregional Epidemiology Units (CIRE) and the Department of Environmental Health (DSE) of the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance (InVS) reveals that difficulties regarding transparency, consistency, and interpretation of available data are regularly encountered during this stage. In fact, soil measurements are rarely taken with the specific aim of estimating exposure, yet the results are nevertheless used in this context. This observation led to the development of a tool to aid in the interpretation of results from soil pollutant concentration measurement campaigns, in the form of an interpretation grid. The steps addressed by this checklist are the use of available information, the selection of a sampling strategy, the selection of sampling and analytical methods, quality control and quality assurance of results, and finally the presentation and interpretation of results. This checklist is intended to complement the various existing methodological guides related to soil characterization. (R.A.)