Partnering To Collect Improved Human Exposure Measurement Data

Nicolle S. Tulve, Alan Vette, Karen Bradham
US Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC

Benefits of Collaboration

• Collaborations allow complex environmental challenges
to be efficiently addressed by leveraging resources and
scientific expertise

• Collaborations are routinely fonned with
other federal, state, and local government
organizations, as well as academia and
international groups

1 These projects represent highly successful partnerships
between various research organizations that address a number
of research objectives and improve our understanding of
exposures to chemicals of interest to the Agency

Detroit Exposure and Health Effects Studies

Outcomes

The American Healthy Homes Survey (AHHS)

Interagency Effort to Characterize
Contaminants in Child Care Centers (CCC)

Authors

2001 Community-Based Study in the Greater
Jacksonville, FL Area (JAX)

Several research studies are being conducted in the Detroit
Metropolitan area to better understand the relationship between
people's exposure to air pollution and human health. The overall goal
of these studies is to use measurement and modeled data to assess
the impact of ambient-based PM and air toxic sources on human
populations and the neighborhoods in which they live.

•	Detroit Exposure and Aerosol Research Study (DEARS) - NERL

-	Air pollution exposure study involving indoor, outdoor, and
personal exposure monitoring for 120 residents in Wayne County,
Michigan over a three-year period

-	Impacts of industrial point and mobile sources on exposures to PM
components and select air toxics will be determined

-	Data gathered in this study will be leveraged with other exposure
and health effects studies

•	Detroit Children's Health Study (DCHS) - NHEERL/NERL

-	Data from DEARS, along with school-based monitoring and
modeled data, will be used to assess the impact of outdoor air
pollutants on asthma of students in the Detroit and Dearborn areas

•	Healthy Heart Study - University of Michigan

-	Personal exposure data from DEARS will be used to determine
cardiovascular impacts, including brachial artery dilation

•	Detroit PM Toxicology Study - NHEERL

-	Toxicological studies conducted on coarse, fine, and ultrafine PM
collected at one of the DEARS monitoring sites

-	Along with source apportionment data from DEARS, this study will
provide insight into the toxicological properties of PM attributed to
specific ambient sources

•	Canadian Windsor Air Quality Studies - Health Canada

-	Exposure and health effects studies conducted across the Detroit
River in Canada; similar in scope and design to the U.S. studies

-	Contains a human exposure component, similar to DEARS, and
health effects studies involving asthmatic children and diabetics

Collaboration involves scientists across ORD, the Michigan
Department of Environmental Quality, Community Action Against
Asthma - CAAA, the University of Michigan, Health Canada, the
Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute (EOHSI),
and RTI international.

•	Collaboration between the Duval County Health Department
(DCHD), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), and the EPA on a measurement study to characterize
young children's potential exposures to pesticides in residential
environments in Jacksonville, FL

•	DCHD initiated this community-based study and solicited
participation from CDC for measurements of pesticide
metabolites in urine and EPA for assistance in characterizing
pesticide residues in the homes of study participants

•	Project evolved into a three-tiered study that examined the
potential exposures of young children (4 to 6 years of age) to a
large number of organophosphate and pyrethroid pesticides

•	Collaboration between EPA's ORD and OPPT, and the US
Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) Office
of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control to perform a national
survey of housing related hazards.

*	In addition to measuring lead and allergens, AHHS will provide
the first ever national estimates of housing-related potential health
hazards (e.g., pesticides, mold, arsenic). Specific objectives of the
proposed AHHS are to:

-	Estimate the number and percent of homes with lead-based
paint hazards and evaluate changes since the 1997-2000
National Survey of Lead and Allergens in Housing (NSLAH)

-	Estimate the levels of specified allergens in dust in homes and
evaluate changes in the levels since the NSLAH

-	Produce the first ever national estimates of the levels of additional
housing-related hazards, including:

~	Specific molds in house dust in homes and relate these
estimates to observed water damage

~	Residential-use pesticides and relate these estimates to
homeowner or applicator applied pesticides and household
products

~	Arsenic concentrations in house dust and soil, as well as
bioavailable arsenic in soil, and relate these data to the presence
of chromated copper arsenate (CCA) treated wood or other
arsenic contaminated surfaces that children may touch

Nicolle Tulve1, Alan Vette1, Karen Bradham1, Roy Fortmann1, Dana Barr2,
Rob Brook3, Janet Burke1, Carol Cave4, Easter Coppedge1, Dan Costa1,

Carry Croghan1, Kathy Edgren3, Alexa Fraser5, Warren Friedman6, Sharon Harper1,
Mary Ann Heindorf7, Ross Highsmith1, Aaron Hilliard8, Dave Jones8,

Andrew Lindstrom1, Paul Lioy9, David Marker5, Lisa Melnyk13, Shaibal Mukerjee1,
Luke Naeher2, Lucas Neas1, Marcia Nishioka10, Anne Rea11, Charles Rodes12,

Linda Sheldon1, John Smith13, Carvin Stevens1, Daniel Stout II1, Susan Viet5,
Amanda Wheeler14, Donald Whitaker1, Ronald Williams1, Joey Zhou15

1ORD

2Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA
3University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Ml
"US Consumer Product Safety Commission, Washington, DC
5Westat, Rockville, MD

6Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control, US Department of Housing and Urban Development,
Washington, DC

'Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, Lansing, Ml

aDuval County Health Department, Division of Environmental Health and Engineering, Jacksonville, FL
'Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, Piscataway, NJ
"Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, OH

"Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards, US Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC
12RTI International, Research Triangle Park, NC

"Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, US Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC
"Health Canada, Ottawa, Ontario

16Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventative Medicine, Aberdeen Proving Grounds, MD (at the US
Department of Housing and Urban Development at the time of collaboration)

Disclaimer: Although this work was reviewed by EPA and approved for publication, it may
not necessarily reflect official Agency policy.

By collaborating on these projects...

•	EPA is able to obtain valuable information that might not have
been able to be gathered in any other manner.

•	EPA is benefiting from improved measurement and modeling
capabilities of exposure and health effects.

•	EPA is gaining access to communities.

•	EPA is saving significant amounts of public funds, reducing the
survey response burden on the public, and reducing the time
needed to obtain the required data by the participating Agencies.

•	EPA will gain a more comprehensive understanding of the
relationship between exposure to air pollution and human
health effects.

•	EPA will gain a rich database useful for understanding particulate
matter and air toxics source impacts on human health.

•	EPA will participate in producing the first national residential
multi-parameter database.

•	EPA will use the AHHS data to develop new distributions of
concentration levels and to examine changes in the occurrence
and magnitude of these concentration levels and risks overtime,
where baseline data is available.

•	EPA has obtained valuable information on pesticide usage in
child care centers, concentrations of pesticides on surfaces in
the centers that children may contact, and the distribution of
pesticides within child care centers.

Collaboration between the US Department of Housing and
Urban Development (HUD), the US Consumer Product Safety
Commission (CPSC), and the EPA to measure levels of pesticides,
lead, and allergens in licensed institutional child care centers
randomly selected for participation in this national survey

Multi-stage sampling design with clustering resulted in 166 child
care centers from 30 primary sampling units being selected for
participation

Samples for pesticide, lead, and allergen analysis were collected
at multiple locations in each child care center


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