4196.0: Tuesday, October 23, 2001: 2:30 PM-4:00 PM

Oral Session

Biomonitoring and the National Exposure Report: Part I

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):Lynn Goldman, MD
Moderator(s):Paul Locke, DrPH, JD
Organizer(s):Jill Litt, PhD
2:30 PMIntroductory Remarks
2:45 PMCDC's National Exposure Report: An ongoing assessment of the exposure of the U.S. population to toxic substances
James Pirkle, MD, PhD, Eric J. Sampson, PhD, Julie Fishman, MPH, Larry L. Needham, PhD, David Ashley, PhD, Elaine Gunter, MS, Dayton Miller, PhD
3:00 PMConcentrations of dialkyl phosphate metabolites of organophosphate pesticides in the U.S. population
Dana B. Barr, PhD, Roberto Bravo, PhD, Ralph D. Whitehead, BS, Susan E. Schober, PhD, James Pirkle, MD, PhD, Larry L. Needham, PhD
3:15 PMLevels of selected urinary phthalate metabolites in humans
John W. Brock, PhD, Carolyn Hodge, BS, Susan E. Schober, PhD, Manori Silva, PhD, Nicole Malek, BS, Jack Reidy, PhD, Larry L. Needham, PhD
3:30 PMFuture directions
Richard Jackson, MD
3:45 PMDiscussion and Closing Remarks
Lynn Goldman, MD
Sponsor:Environment
Cosponsors:Public Health Nursing
CE Credits:CME, Environmental Health, Health Education (CHES), Nursing, Pharmacy, Social Work

The 129th Annual Meeting of APHA