4266.0: Tuesday, October 23, 2001: 4:30 PM-6:00 PM

Oral Session

Biomonitoring and the National Exposure Report: Part II

Our ability to understand how exposure and disease are related is lacking. Assessing exposure to chemicals in the environment is essential for assuring environmental health, yet technically very difficult. As a result, many questions about the hazards of exposure to compounds have gone unanswered. Fortunately, the field of exposure assessment has advanced rapidly in the past several years, thanks in large part to the ability to detect minute amounts of chemicals in the blood, urine and bodily fluids of humans through techniques of biological monitoring. New and innovative methods in biological monitoring have been developed and put into practice by the National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These back-to-back sessions will report on the biomonitoring exposure data collected by CDC's NCEH. The sessions will review the data collected for metals, phthlates, environmental tobacco smoke and pesticides, discuss its importance in making environmental health policy, and examine future directions. The sessions will also study how journalists approach scientific data such as biomonitoring, and look at the data's relevance for a national tracking system of chronic diseases.
See individual abstracts for presenting author's disclosure statement.
Learning Objectives: To learn about exposure surveillance activities in the United States, to understand the role of the media in communicating scientific information to the public, to examine the role of advocacy in translating scientific information for policy and planning purposes, and to discuss public health policy implications of a national exposure tracking system and future directions.
Discussant(s):Thomas Burke, PhD, MPH
Moderator(s):Paul Locke, DrPH, JD
Organizer(s):Jill Litt, PhD
4:30 PMIntroductory Remarks
4:45 PMU.S. population's exposure to thirteen toxic metals
Kathleen Caldwell, PhD, Robert Jones, PhD, Dayton Miller, PhD, Dan Paschal, PhD, Elaine Gunter, MS, Susan E. Schober, PhD
5:00 PMExposure of the U.S. population to environmental tobacco smoke--A decade of progress
John T. Bernert, PhD, Susan E. Schober, PhD, James E. McGuffey, BS, Connie Sosnoff, MS, Melissa A. Morrison, BS, Mary K. DeLong, BS, James Pirkle, MD, PhD
5:15 PMTranslating Science without Advocating: A Journalist's Perspective
M.A.J. McKenna, MSJ
5:30 PMThe role of health data for effective advocacy
Shelley Hearne, DrPH, MPH
5:45 PMConcluding Remarks
Sponsor:Environment
Cosponsors:Occupational Health and Safety; Public Health Nursing
CE Credits:CME, Environmental Health, Nursing, Pharmacy, Social Work

The 129th Annual Meeting of APHA