NCEH in Partnership With Pennsylvania
NCEH is the National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH), a
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 from environmental
hazards. NCEH has approximately 450 employees and an annual budget
for 2003 of approximately $182 million; its mission is to
promote health and quality of life by preventing or controlling
those diseases or deaths that result from interactions between
people and their environment.
NCEH and partners throughout Pennsylvania have teamed up on
a variety of environmental health projects throughout the state.
From fiscal years 2001 through 2003, NCEH awarded more than
$7.1 million in direct funds and services to Pennsylvania
for various projects. These projects include activities related to
asthma control and intervention, environmental public health
tracking, biomonitoring, and childhood lead-poisoning prevention.
In addition, Pennsylvania also benefits from national-level
prevention and response activities conducted by NCEH or
NCEH-funded partners. For example, NCEH measures human exposure to
chemicals and shares the results in the National Report on Human
Exposure to Environmental Chemicals. Pennsylvania can use these
data to plan, implement, evaluate, and strengthen its
environmental public health prevention and control efforts.
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 has conducted or supported in
Pennsylvania.
Asthma Activities
- Controlling Asthma in American Cities—Under this project,
NCEH is funding Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to
influence asthma outcomes (asthma hospitalizations, asthma
emergency department visits, and unscheduled visits) among the
pediatric asthma population in a specific region of Philadelphia.
Children’s Hospital is using the “You Can Control Asthma”
curriculum to provide asthma-management classes for the community;
visiting the homes of patients with severe asthma to assess
environmental triggers and teach patients about asthma; and
training physicians, school nurses, and parents on how to teach
others about asthma.
-
Replication and Implementation of Scientifically Proven Asthma
Interventions—NCEH is funding the Philadelphia Department
of Public Health (Phil DPH) to implement the Asthma Care
Training (ACT) curriculum, an asthma intervention that can
decrease acute-care visits, decrease hospitalizations, and
increase compliance with asthma care plans.
Since September 2002, Phil DPH has initiated ACT classes in seven
of the eight community health care centers in Philadelphia.
The department also has recruited and trained 14 nurses to teach
the ACT curriculum, eight of whom continue to participate actively
in the program. Phil DPH has publicized the availability of the
program through the community health care centers for medical
referrals.
Environmental Public Health Tracking
Activities
- Planning and Capacity-Building—NCEH is funding a project
through which the Pennsylvania Department of Health (PADOH)
and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP)
are collaborating to develop an integrated environmental public
health tracking network that will include both environmental
databases and environmental health outcome databases.
Environmental public health tracking is the ongoing collection,
integration, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of data
on environmental hazards, exposures to those hazards, and related
health effects.
To develop such an integrated environmental public health tracking
network in Pennsylvania, PADOH and PADEP are forging partnerships
between traditional health-focused entities and environmental
agencies at the federal, state, and local levels; expanding the
expertise of the departments’ personnel and purchasing the latest
technology infrastructure; developing standardized electronic data
elements; and building mechanisms for disseminating information to
stakeholders.
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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 has conducted or supported in
Pennsylvania.
Funding
- Antiterrorism Funding to Increase State Chemical Laboratory
Capacity—In fiscal year 2003, CDC provided $2,436,293 to
Pennsylvania to assist the state in expanding its chemical
laboratory capacity to prepare and respond to chemical terrorism
incidents and other chemical emergencies. This program expansion
will allow for full participation of chemical-terrorism response
laboratories in the Laboratory Response Network.
-
Biomonitoring Planning Grant—In fiscal year 2001, NCEH
awarded a grant to Pennsylvania to develop a plan for
implementing a biomonitoring program for the state. In this way,
the state could make decisions about which environmental chemicals
within its borders were of health concern and could make plans for
measuring levels of those chemicals in the Pennsylvania
population.
Studies
- Exposure to the Fuel Additive Methyl Tert-Butyl Ether (MTBE)
and Fuel From Contaminated Groundwater—Residents of
Buckingham were concerned about the potential health effects
resulting from exposure to a large underground gasoline spill. At
the request of PADOH and the Agency for Toxic Substances
and Disease Registry, NCEH measured gasoline-related volatile
organic compounds (VOCs) in the blood of approximately 20
Buckingham residents over a 6-month period. The analysis of the
samples found no significantly elevated levels of these VOCs in
the residents’ blood. NCEH also measured these compounds in the
blood of 12 residents of Hazleton and found no
significantly elevated levels in the blood of those residents.
Hazleton residents were selected because area homes also were
affected by an underground gasoline spill.
Services
- Blood Lead Laboratory Reference System (BLLRS)—BLLRS is a
CDC standardization program designed to improve the overall
quality of laboratory measurements of lead in blood. In
Pennsylvania, 11 laboratories participate in BLLRS. This
program allows these laboratories to evaluate their performance on
laboratory tests. CDC provides BLLRS materials free of charge to
these laboratories four times a year.
-
Lipid Standardization Program (LSP)—NCEH provides
standardization support to four lipid research laboratories in
Pennsylvania that are involved in epidemiologic studies and
clinical trials investigating risk factors and complications
associated with cardiovascular disease. LSP, supported by CDC’s
Lipid Reference Laboratory (the cornerstone of the National
Reference System for Cholesterol to which these lipid measurements
are traceable), provides quarterly analytical performance
challenges and statistical assessment reports to allow program
participants to monitor performance, thus ensuring the accuracy
and comparability of study results and findings.
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Preventing Health Effects From
Environmental Hazards
NCEH promotes safe environmental public health practices to
minimize exposure to environmental hazards and prevent adverse
health effects. Following are examples of such activities that
NCEH has conducted or supported in Pennsylvania.
- Childhood Lead-Poisoning Prevention—PADOH (state and local
partners in building capacity to eliminate childhood lead
poisoning as a major public health problem) has received NCEH
funding since 1992; NCEH began awarding separate funding to the
Philadelphia Childhood Lead-Poisoning Prevention Program in
2001. In Pennsylvania, the number of children younger than 6 years
of age who have been screened for blood lead levels has increased
17% from 1997 to 2001—from 39,200 to 45,738, respectively. In
addition to more children being tested, the number of children
younger than 6 years of age with elevated blood lead levels has
decreased 59%—from 9,644 in 1997 to 4,259 in 2001. Pennsylvania
and Philadelphia have implemented primary prevention activities
through which they provide education to pregnant women on
lead-poisoning prevention.
-
Building Communities of Excellence Through Environmental Health
Capacity-Building—In fiscal year 2003, NCEH established a
3-year cooperative agreement with the Allegheny County Health
Department in Pittsburgh to build capacity within its
health department for environmental health services-related
activities. Environmental capacity in Allegheny County has been
improved through the hiring of an epidemiologist who has developed
standards for conducting epidemiologic investigations and
methodologies for collecting and analyzing data. Funding is being
used to conduct videoconferences that have allowed grantees across
the country to share experiences and information about
environmental issues and programs and to develop a comprehensive
set of environmental indicators.
-
Rodent Control and Environmental Improvements—In fiscal
year 2001, NCEH funded Phil DPH for an Urban Commensal
Rodent Control and Environmental Improvement and Safety Project.
The purpose of this program is to demonstrate that a comprehensive
approach to eliminating commensal rodent infestation also will
prevent, eliminate, or reduce the consequences of diseases and
injuries associated with unhealthful home environments. The health
department is conducting several community-based demonstration
projects to conduct rodent control.
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Resources
NCEH develops materials that public health professionals, medical
care providers, emergency responders, decision makers, and the
public can use to identify and track hazards in the environment
that pose a threat to 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, and mold
issues), biomonitoring to determine whether and how much of
substances in the environment are getting into people, childhood
lead poisoning, emergency preparedness and response for 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 chemical weapons disposal, specific health studies,
vessel sanitation, and veterans’ health.
For more information about NCEH programs, activities, and
publications and 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.
February 2004
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