title: Addressing historic environmental exposures along the Alaska Highway.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  A World War II defense site at Northway, Alaska, was remediated in the 1990s, leaving complex questions regarding historic exposures to toxic waste. This article describes the context, methods, limitations and findings of the Northway Wild Food and Health Project (NWFHP).
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The NWFHP comprised 2 pilot studies: the Northway Wild Food Study (NWFS), which investigated contaminants in locally prioritized traditional foods over time, and the Northway Health Study (NHS), which investigated locally suspected links between resource uses and health problems.
  
  
  METHODS
  This research employed mixed methods. The NWFS reviewed remedial documents and existing data. The NHS collected household information regarding resource uses and health conditions by questionnaire and interview. NHS data represent general (yes or no) personal knowledge that was often second hand. Retrospective cohort comparisons were made of the reported prevalence of 7 general health problems between groups based on their reported (yes or no) consumption of particular resources, for 3 data sets (existing, historic and combined) with a two-tailed Fisher's Exact Test in SAS (n = 325 individuals in 83 households, 24 of which no longer exist).
  
  
  RESULTS
  The NWFS identified historic pathways of exposure to petroleum, pesticides, herbicides, chlorinated byproducts of disinfection and lead from resources that were consumed more frequently decades ago and are not retrospectively quantifiable. The NHS found complex patterns of association between reported resource uses and cancer and thyroid-, reproductive-, metabolic- and cardiac problems.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Lack of detail regarding medical conditions, undocumented histories of exposure, time lapsed since the release of pollution and changes to health and health care over the same period make this exploratory research. Rather than demonstrate causation, these results document the legitimacy of local suspicions and warrant additional investigation. This article presents our findings, with discussion of limitations related to study design and limitations that are inherent to such research.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK 99775, USA. argodduhn@alaska.edu
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Godduhn
authors.forename: Lawrence
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Duffy
mesh_terms: D000413:Alaska; D000818:Animals; D000835:Animals, Wild; D004032:Diet / Q000009:adverse effects; D004781:Environmental Exposure / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000032:analysis / Q000266:history; D005399:Fishes; D005506:Food Contamination; D006304:Health Status; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology; D010865:Pilot Projects; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013959:Thyroid Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology
keywords: complexity; endocrine disruption; environmental toxics; military waste; persistent organic pollutants; uncertainty