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Workshop on Optimizing Exposure Metrics for the National Children's Study - Summary of Workgroup Discussions and Recommendations
Citation:
TULVE, N. S., L. S. SHELDON, AND R. C. FORTMANN. Workshop on Optimizing Exposure Metrics for the National Children's Study - Summary of Workgroup Discussions and Recommendations. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-10/064 (NTIS PB2010-112916), 2010.
Impact/Purpose:
The National Exposure Research Laboratory′s (NERL) Human Exposure and Atmospheric Sciences Division (HEASD) conducts research in support of EPA′s mission to protect human health and the environment. HEASD′s research program supports Goal 1 (Clean Air) and Goal 4 (Healthy People) of EPA′s strategic plan. More specifically, our division conducts research to characterize the movement of pollutants from the source to contact with humans. Our multidisciplinary research program produces Methods, Measurements, and Models to identify relationships between and characterize processes that link source emissions, environmental concentrations, human exposures, and target-tissue dose. The impact of these tools is improved regulatory programs and policies for EPA.
Description:
The National Children’s Study (NCS) will examine the relationships between environmental exposures and the health and development of 100,000 children living in the United States. The children will be followed from before birth until age 21. This is a very large, complex, and ambitious undertaking. Scientifically robust exposure metrics that are both low cost and low burden are needed to link environmental exposures to health outcomes within this study. This workshop engaged scientists from the exposure, epidemiology, and health effects disciplines with the goal of identifying the most promising and practical exposure metrics to use in a study the size and scope of the NCS. Additionally, the group discussed knowledge gaps and potential exposure research that would fill these gaps and could be used to develop and evaluate the most efficient and effective metrics. The workshop results are intended to provide operational input to NCS in the near term and to stimulate research in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Office of Research and Development (ORD), the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), and the exposure science community to advance the national children’s research agenda.