NCEH in Partnership With Kentucky
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 more than 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 Kentucky have teamed up on a
variety of environmental health projects throughout the state.
From fiscal years 2001 through 2003, NCEH awarded more than
$3.7 million in direct funds and services to Kentucky for
various projects. In addition, Kentucky also 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. Examples of these kinds of
activities include asthma surveillance and environmental public
health tracking. NCEH has not recently conducted or supported any
such activities in Kentucky.
Measuring Exposure to Environmental
Chemicals
NCEH measures environmental chemicals in people to determine how
to protect people and improve their health. Following is an
example of such activities that NCEH has conducted or supported in
Kentucky.
Funding
- Antiterrorism Funding to Increase State Chemical Laboratory
Capacity— In fiscal year 2003, CDC provided $237,086 to assist
Kentucky 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.
Services
- Lipid Standardization Program (LSP)—NCEH provides
standardization support to one lipid research laboratory in
Kentucky that is involved in epidemiologic studies or clinical
trials investigating risk factors for and complications of
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 over time and thus ensure 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 Kentucky.
- Childhood Lead-Poisoning Prevention—The
Louisville/Jefferson County Department of Health has received
funding from NCEH for its Childhood Lead-Poisoning Prevention
Program (CLPPP) since 1992. The Jefferson County Department of
Health houses the National Lead Training Resource Center, the only
facility of its kind to provide training on the fundamentals of
childhood lead poisoning to public health professionals across the
country. The Louisville-Jefferson County CLPPP intends to continue
supporting the screening, education, and outreach services
necessary to reduce blood lead levels of children in Jefferson
County. In collaboration with CDC, the Louisville-Jefferson County
CLPPP used geographic information system technology to conduct a
descriptive study of the blood lead levels and residential
location of at-risk children screened for lead exposure. This
study showed that 79 houses in the area were home to 187
children—35% of all children identified with lead poisoning
between 1994 and 1998.
In 2000, the Kentucky Department of Public Health was
awarded a cooperative agreement to ensure that children at risk
for lead poisoning are screened and that children with elevated
blood lead levels receive medical and environmental follow-up
services. The state was funded to develop and implement a
statewide surveillance system to monitor screening and follow-up
services, determine the prevalence and distribution of lead
poisoning, and identify populations at high risk for lead
exposure. In 2000, 15,844 children younger than 6 years of age
were tested in Kentucky. Of those children tested, 142 had
elevated blood lead levels (10 micrograms per deciliter [µg/dL]).
In 2000–2002, 6% (range 0%–20.5%) of all children younger than 6
years of age and 10% (range 0%–36.4%) of all children aged 1–2
years of age, respectively, received a lead test in Kentucky.
Kentucky provides free lead testing to children in all of its
counties. Kentucky leads in Lead-Safe Work Practices Training,
targeting more than 380 environmental and housing professionals
such as abatement contractors, landlords, property owners, and
housing personnel. Kentucky has a longstanding partnership with
the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and several
community-based primary prevention programs with a major focus on
in-house one-on-one education visits with parents of children
identified as at-risk because of one or two blood lead levels of
15–19 µg/dL.
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Louisville Metro Community-Based Emergency Response Program—During
2002–2003, NCEH provided funding and technical assistance to
develop and conduct the Louisville Metro Community-Based
Emergency Response Program, which offers public health
practitioners and emergency response personnel the opportunity to
experience firsthand one of the nation’s most successfully
integrated community public health/emergency response systems. The
training program is a joint partnership of the Louisville Metro
Health Department, the Louisville Metro Crisis Group,
and CDC. This program is moving into its second year of providing
monthly all-hazards preparedness assistance to state, local,
tribal, and international public health agencies.
In 2003, NCEH provided funding to support a joint partnership with
the Louisville Metro Health Department to develop and staff an
Environmental Public Health Training Institute that brings
together the best of environmental health leadership,
practitioners, and evidence-based science to train the
environmental health leaders and scientists of tomorrow.
During 2003, the Kentucky Department of Health received
technical assistance from NCEH to design, plan, conduct, and
evaluate two public health preparedness exercises in Paducah
and Hazard. Public health emergency response technical
assistance, support services, and training exercises are available
to state, local, and tribal health authorities. The NCEH program
provides technical assistance that includes helping community
public health authorities establish and maintain a comprehensive
emergency response exercise program, develop and facilitate
emergency response exercises, create a design team for a community
emergency response exercise, and give other related technical
support.
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Environmental Public Health Leadership Institute (EPHLI)—A
priority goal in implementing CDC’s National Strategy to
Revitalize Environmental Health Services is to foster leadership
by providing guidance, training, and assistance to building and
enhancing leadership capabilities. In fiscal year 2003, CDC
awarded more than $900,000 to Kentucky for the development
of an Environmental Public Health Leadership Institute in
Louisville.
The EHPLI goals are to develop the leadership competencies needed
to address the environmental health challenges of the 21st century
and to improve environmental health practice within state, tribal,
and local organizations.
In October 2003, a workgroup met in Louisville to kick off
development of a national EPHLI. The workgroup, which includes
representatives from the National Environmental Health
Association, National Public Health Leadership Development
Network, University of South Carolina School of Public Health,
University of Kentucky Public Health Leadership Institute,
Eastern Kentucky University, University of Denver, Oklahoma
State Health Department, University of Oklahoma, and University of
Washington, is developing a curriculum and a framework for full
implementation of EPHLI.
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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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