NCEH in
Partnership With Oklahoma
The National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH) is part of the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). NCEH’s work
focuses on three program areas: identifying environmental hazards,
measuring exposure to environmental chemicals, and preventing
health effects that result from environmental hazards. NCEH has
approximately 450 employees and a budget for 2004 of approximately
$189 million; its mission is to promote health and quality of life
by preventing or controlling diseases and deaths that result from
interactions between people and their environment.
NCEH and partners in Oklahoma collaborate on a variety of
environmental health projects throughout the state. In fiscal
years 2000–2004, NCEH awarded more than $1.1 million in
direct funds and services to Oklahoma for various projects. These
projects include activities related to tracking environmental
public health, helping state public health laboratories respond to
chemical terrorism, and preventing childhood lead poisoning. In
addition, Oklahoma benefits from national-level prevention and
response activities conducted by NCEH or NCEH-funded partners.
Identifying Environmental Hazards
NCEH identifies, investigates, and tracks environmental hazards
and their effects on people’s health. Following are examples of
such activities that NCEH conducted or supported in Oklahoma.
- Controlling Asthma from a
Public Health Perspective—NCEH is funding the Oklahoma
State Department of Health (OSDH) to develop asthma-control
plans that include disease tracking, intervention, and
occupational components. Funding began in fiscal year 2002 and
continues through fiscal year 2004.
- Environmental Public Health
Tracking (EPHT)—NCEH is funding a cooperative agreement with
OSDH, which developed the Oklahoma Public Health
Environmental Tracking System (OK-PHETS) in conjunction with the
Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). OK-PHETS
will link health data and data from OSDH surveillance systems
with environmental hazard data from DEQ. The program will
collaborate with the Oklahoma Central Cancer Registry and the
Asthma Surveillance System.
A key objective of the Oklahoma EPHT Program is to determine
whether a spatial-temporal association exists between
environmental toxicants from National Priorities List/Superfund
sites and incidents of neural tube defects, spinal bifida, and
anencephaly. During the first stage of this program, OK-PHETS
will use data from surveillance systems of the Oklahoma Lead
Poisoning Prevention Program and the Oklahoma Birth Defect
Registry for possible linkages with DEQ data on environmental
hazards.
Back to Top
Measuring Exposure to Environmental
Chemicals
NCEH measures environmental chemicals in people to determine how
to protect people and improve their health. Following are examples
of such activities that NCEH conducted or supported in Oklahoma.
Funding
- Antiterrorism Funding to
Increase State Chemical Laboratory Capacity—In fiscal year
2003, CDC provided more than $320,000 to Oklahoma to help
the state expand its chemical laboratory capacity to prepare for
and respond to chemical-terrorism incidents and other chemical
emergencies. This program will provide training and technical
assistance to Oklahoma on proper procedures for collecting and
shipping human samples after a chemical-terrorism incident.
Services
- Helping State Public Health
Laboratories Respond to Chemical Terrorism—NCEH is working
with Oklahoma’s public health laboratory to prepare state
laboratory personnel for collecting and transporting human
samples after a chemical-terrorism incident.
- Blood Lead Laboratory
Reference System (BLLRS)—Two laboratories in Oklahoma
participate in NCEH’s standardization program to improve the
overall quality of laboratory measurements of blood lead levels.
This program helps laboratories nationwide evaluate their
performance on these critical laboratory tests. NCEH provides
BLLRS materials to the laboratories four times a year without
charge.
- Newborn Screening
Quality-Assurance Program—NCEH provided proficiency-testing
services and dried-blood-spot, quality-control materials to
monitor and help assure the quality of screening program
operations for newborns in Oklahoma. The importance of
accurate screening tests for genetic metabolic diseases cannot
be overestimated. Testing of blood spots collected from newborns
is mandated by law in almost every state to promote early
intervention that can prevent mental retardation, severe
illness, and premature death.
Back to Top
Preventing Health Effects That Result
from Environmental Hazards
NCEH promotes safe environmental
public health practices to minimize exposure to environmental
hazards and prevent adverse health effects. Following is an
example of such an activity that NCEH conducted or supported in
Oklahoma.
- Lead Poisoning Prevention—The
Oklahoma Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program (OK
CLPPP) has received NCEH funding since 2000. In 2001, OK
CLPPP screened 11,847 children for blood lead levels. The number
of children under 6 years of age who had elevated blood lead
levels decreased from 341 in 1997 to 147 in 2001.
OK CLPPP is using NCEH funds to develop and implement a plan to
eliminate childhood lead poisoning for the state, increase
targeting screening activities, update its existing surveillance
system, and increase primary prevention activities and strategic
partnerships.
Resources
NCEH develops materials that public health professionals,
medical-care providers, emergency responders, decision makers, and
the public can use to identify and track environmental hazards
that threaten human health and to prevent or mitigate exposure to
those hazards. NCEH’s resources cover a range of environmental
public health issues, including air pollution and respiratory
health (e.g., asthma, carbon monoxide poisoning, and mold
exposures), biomonitoring to determine whether selected chemicals
in the environment get into people and how much, childhood lead
poisoning, emergency preparedness for and response to chemicals
and radiation, environmental health services, environmental public
health tracking, international emergency and refugee health,
laboratory sciences as applied to environmental health, radiation
studies, safe disposal of chemical weapons, specific health
studies, vessel sanitation, and veterans’ health.
For more information about NCEH programs, activities, and
publications as well as other resources, contact the NCEH Health
Line toll-free at 1-888-232-6789, e-mail NCEHinfo@cdc.gov, or
visit the NCEH Web site at
www.cdc.gov/nceh.
June 2004
Back to Top
|
