Shared Vision

Overview of CDC/ATSDR Achievements

NCEH and ATSDR have made significant progress over the past 2 decades. NCEH has made outstanding progress in such areas as biomonitoring; reducing the prevalence of childhood lead poisoning; collaborating with State and local health agencies and other partners to track, prevent, and control asthma; and understanding and responding to natural and technologic disasters, both nationally and world wide. NCEH has conducted numerous epidemiologic investigations of acute disease outbreaks related to chemical and other exposures.

Equally, ATSDR has been the national leader in understanding the toxicology of hazardous materials, assessing the health of communities exposed to toxic waste sites, studying the health effects of exposure to toxic substances, and providing community and professional education related to these areas. ATSDR also has established strong ties with EPA by actually assigning staff to EPA regional offices and has a major emphasis on working directly with communities and Tribal nations to ensure their on-going involvement in all site work.

The success of past NCEH and ATSDR collaborations on complex environmental public health problems demonstrates the synergism the two agencies can bring to such problems. For example, as a result of widespread contamination (approximately 20,000 persons–including 10,000 children–in seven States) from illegal indoor use of the highly toxic pesticide, methyl parathion, ATSDR, working with NCEH laboratory and other personnel, along with State and local partners and EPA, developed an effective national public health response. A protocol was developed that integrated environmental and biologic data in a manner that allowed for targeted public health interventions directed at persons at highest risk. EPA saved more than $18 million because biologic testing helped determine the relative public health risks associated with these exposures.

Another major success for both organizations is our emergency preparedness and response assistance. ATSDR works closely with EPA and the Coast Guard to provide immediate public health guidance in emergency events such as industrial and other toxic substance releases related to the storage, disposal, and transport of these substances. A recent example of this was the removal of mercury-based gas regulators from 400,000 residences in the Detroit and Chicago metropolitan areas. Mercury had inadvertently been released from these regulators into residences. NCEH’s emergency preparedness and response capabilities include natural and technologic disaster assistance, response to bioterrorism threats, bioterrorism preparedness planning and readiness activities, and response to complex international humanitarian emergencies involving refugee populations. The health and financial cost consequences of disasters can be enormous and can be reduced by applying the same epidemiology, surveillance, and public health service delivery techniques that are applied to infectious disease prevention activities. NCEH collaborates with FEMA after natural disasters, including assessing health and medical needs immediately post-disaster and providing surveillance and epidemiologic support in response and recovery phases. NCEH’s National Pharmaceutical Stockpile Program is a national pharmaceutical asset, maintaining drugs, medical equipment and supplies, and antidotes for use in terrorist events that may occur in the United States. In FY 2000, NCEH staff participated in teams responding to hurricanes that affected seven States and Puerto Rico, established the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile Program, were instrumental in ensuring the implementation of mass immunization campaigns in Kosovo, and are developing cross-cultural indicators of refugee health status from data collected at over 40 refugee camps throughout the world.

NCEH has served as the central laboratory for the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). This survey has provided the data showing the decrease of blood lead levels in the general population which correlated with the decrease in lead in gasoline and lead-soldered seams in domestic food cans. Currently, NCEH in its Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals, has provided the levels of 27 environmental toxicants in the general population in the United States. These background data will provide trend information by which we can evaluate the effectiveness of regulations and determine populations potentially at high risk because of high exposure levels. NCEH is using ATSDR’s toll-free phone system and its ToxFAQs to provide additional information to the public.

NCEH and ATSDR, along with their colleagues at EPA and the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, are leading a collaborative effort to identify environmental public health indicators for use in tracking environmental exposures and adverse health effects at the national and State levels. NCEH and ATSDR scientists also collaborate on radiation exposure and health effects research projects at nuclear weapon production facilities in the United States.