Advancing environmental health surveillance in the US through a national human biomonitoring network.
The United States lacks a comprehensive, nationally-coordinated, state-based environmental health surveillance system. This lack of infrastructure leads to: • varying levels of understanding of chemical exposures at the state & local levels • often inefficient public health responses to chemical exposure emergencies (such as those that occurred in the Flint drinking water crisis, the Gold King mine spill, the Elk river spill and the Gulf Coast oil spill) • reduced ability to measure the impact of public health interventions or environmental policies • less efficient use of resources for cleaning up environmental contamination Establishing the National Biomonitoring Network serves as a step toward building a national, state-based environmental health surveillance system. The Network builds upon CDC investments in emergency preparedness and environmental public health tracking, which have created advanced chemical analysis and information sharing capabilities in the state public health systems. The short-term goal of the network is to harmonize approaches to human biomonitoring in the US, thus increasing the comparability of human biomonitoring data across states and communities. The long-term goal is to compile baseline data on exposures at the state level, similar to data found in CDC's National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals. Barriers to success for this network include: available resources, effective risk communication strategies, data comparability & sharing, and political will. Anticipated benefits include high quality data on which to base public health and environmental decisions, data with which to assess the success of public health interventions, improved risk assessments for chemicals, and new ways to prioritize environmental health research.
Association of Public Health Laboratories, 8515 Georgia Avenue, Suite 700, Silver Spring, MD 20910, United States. Electronic address: mlatshaw@jhu.edu.
Megan Weil
MW
Latshaw
Association of Public Health Laboratories, 8515 Georgia Avenue, Suite 700, Silver Spring, MD 20910, United States.
Ruhiyyih
R
Degeberg
American Public Health Association, 800 I Street, NW, Washington, DC 20001, United States. Electronic address: surili.patel@apha.org.
Surili Sutaria
SS
Patel
Washington State Public Health Laboratories, United States. Electronic address: blaine.rhodes@doh.wa.gov.
Blaine
B
Rhodes
Rhode Island Department of Health, United States. Electronic address: Ewa.King@health.ri.gov.
Ewa
E
King
Utah Public Health Laboratory, Salt Lake City, UT, United States. Electronic address: schaudhu@utah.gov.
Sanwat
S
Chaudhuri
New Hampshire Division of Public Health Services, 29 Hazen Drive, Concord, New Hampshire 03301, United States. Electronic address: julianne.nassif@dhhs.state.nh.us.
Julianne
J
Nassif
D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D006801:Humans; D014481:United States
Biomonitoring; Chemical exposure; Human; Laboratory; Risk; Surveillance