Abstract

Our workshop will give participants the practical knowledge and tools needed to share personal results with participants in environmental exposure studies.

As the fields of environmental epidemiology and public health shift toward favoring more transparent and community-engaged research approaches, reporting back personal study results has been emphasized as ethical best practice. Report-back acknowledges participants’ right-to-know their data, empowers them to take action to reduce personal and collective exposures, and facilitates a climate of openness and respect. In addition, report-back can improve study recruitment and retention, and helps researchers discover exposure sources through participant consultation.

Though groups such the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine have recommended that report-back should become routine, many researchers have been slow to adopt the practice, often hindered by the time and skills required for effective report-back. To facilitate researchers in returning high-quality personal results from environmental exposure studies, researchers at Silent Spring developed the Digital Exposure Report-Back Interface (DERBI) with NIH support. This interactive, web-based tool presents personalized chemical results in a way that study participants can easily understand and makes it easier for researchers to share personal results in studies of all sizes. Generated reports can include information about chemicals detected, potential health effects, strategies to reduce exposures, and overall study findings. DERBI also includes analytical tools that help researchers interpret results, including identifying common chemical mixtures.

The workshop will include a 30-minute presentation and discussion on ethical and practical considerations and best practices for report-back followed by a 2.5-hour session in which researchers gain hands-on practice in report preparation using their own data or a provided model dataset. Using an easy-to-use DERBI dashboard, researchers without software expertise will gain skills needed to create their own high-quality biomonitoring reports for print, computer or smartphones.

Abstract

Wildfires are increasing in size and severity, leading to longer wildfire seasons and a higher number of days wherein air quality is considered poor. Wildfire smoke exposure is linked to adverse respiratory, cardiovascular, and perinatal health and to mortality. Gaps remain in understanding the health impacts of wildfire smoke exposure, including smoke composition, methods for measuring exposure and characterizing health outcomes, exposure pathways, and differential effects across the lifespan, particularly for wildland urban interface fires where exposures are more complex, toxic, and direct. Translation of observational research to interventions to reduce health risks from wildfire smoke, and implementation research on proposed interventions is needed. We will use interactive, discussion-based activities to characterize priorities for research on wildfire smoke exposure across the lifespan.

Participants will complete a pre-workshop survey to identify research gaps and priorities to inform interactive elements. First, the workshop will identify areas of collaboration amongst attendees, who will select a topic (wildfire smoke and perinatal health, risk communications, implementation of public health interventions, exposure and data science) and join colleagues to discuss shared interests and priority actions, then repeat with a second topic. Attendees will then inform research priorities by engaging in facilitated activities to identify and prioritize research needs. Using a World Café format, participants will rotate between tables where they will discuss pre-identified topics (wildfire smoke composition, exposure across the lifespan, intervention and implementation, data integration, data collection approaches/methods, risk communications) and identify and prioritize research needs on wildfire smoke exposure across the lifespan. Spending 5-6 minutes at each table before rotating, participants will use dot-voting, Likert scales, and ranking. A facilitator at each table will provide context for the activity and desired outcomes. This workshop will help identify public health and scientific needs and facilitate new collaborations associated with wildfire smoke exposure across the lifespan.

Abstract

The manufacture and production of industrial chemicals continues to increase, with hundreds of thousands of chemicals and chemical mixtures used worldwide, leading to widespread population exposures and resultant health impacts. Low-wealth communities and communities of color often bear disproportionate burdens of exposure and impact; all compounded by regulatory delays to the detriment of public health.

Our approach to human health studies has focused on characterizing disease endpoints rather than preventing health harm, however this approach is often inadequate to understand complex human and environmental health outcomes. Although epidemiological studies present a powerful tool for policy change, there is a critical need to upgrade the use of science in the chemical hazard and risk assessment processes that underpin chemical policy to protect public health. Given the impact of environmental chemical exposures on public health and the need to integrate contemporary science into decision-making in the United States (US) and globally, we worked across multiple disciplines, including epidemiology, toxicology, law, and sociology to develop recommendations to reduce harmful chemical exposures and improve scientific methods to identify chemical harms and assess their risks.

We aim to show how inadequacies in these methods, including failing to: quantify risk across a population for non-cancer health effects, identify and fully account for intrinsic (e.g., genetics) and extrinsic (e.g., racism) factors that increase susceptibility, and conduct exposure assessments that consider realistic exposure scenarios underestimate risk and harm health. Researchers, risk assessors, and policy makers must better understand how appropriate use of advanced scientific methods can contribute to health-protective decisions with the goal of reducing health inequities and creating a world where we all can thrive. Our recommendations can be applied to current policies governing chemicals, and specifically address how the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducts exposure, hazard, and risk assessment and risk management analyses.