Monday, May 12, 2025
5/12/2025
Building Capacity to Evaluate and Reduce Human Exposures to Environmental Hazards in Colorado - The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) is seeking three-year funding through the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) Partnership to Promote Localized Efforts to Reduce Environmental Exposure (APPLETREE) Program. CDPHE is the lead agency for public health and environmental protection in the state of Colorado and is charged with protecting and improving the health of over 5.7 million Coloradans and the quality of their environment. The proposed Colorado APPLETREE Program (CO-AP) funding is critical to CDPHE’s ability to accomplish its mission in communities statewide. Major sources of toxic substances in Colorado include mining of precious metals, oil and gas exploration and drilling, dry cleaners, industrial sites, and power plants. Toxic releases from thousands of sources have contaminated the state’s natural resources, including groundwater (or drinking water), surface water, soil, air, and food. The majority of hazardous waste sites are located in minority and poor neighborhoods, resulting in health disparities. Hundreds of thousand people live and work near major hazardous waste sites, including sites on the National Priority List (Superfund) for cleanup. Over 160,000 children under age 6 are estimated to have elevated blood lead levels because they live in neighborhoods with high lead exposures. In addition, over 5,000 licensed child care facilities need to be evaluated for potential environmental hazards and toxic exposures. The overall purpose of the proposed project is to reduce or eliminate human exposures to hazardous substances in the environment, including those related to safe siting of child care facilities. If awarded, CO-AP will use the funds to conduct public health assessments, health consultations, exposure investigations, community involvement, and health education activities at hazardous waste sites (including those for the siting of child care facilities) to evaluate the health effects associated with toxic environmental exposures, reduce or eliminate ongoing and future exposures, and mitigate associated human health risks. The CO-AP will also provide reliable health information to assist communities and health professionals in preventing harmful exposures and related diseases. These activities will be conducted in accordance with ATSDR’s health assessment and community involvement guidelines. In addition, the CO-AP will develop proactive strategies to prevent harmful exposures from occurring by developing strategies to improve community engagement, promoting environmental health within academic programs, and cultivating partnerships within academic and professional organizations. Furthermore, program evaluation will document the program’s ability to protect the public from environmental hazards and toxic exposures, promote healthy environments, and educate communities, partners, and policy makers. These evaluation findings will be used for continuous program improvement. The proposed CO-AP team has over 40 years of experience in exposure assessment, toxicology, epidemiology, community involvement, health education, and program evaluation. Over the past three years, ATSDR funding has helped the CO-AP investigate the potential health risks and community concerns of over 150,000 people at over 150 contaminated sites; thereby, reducing the number of communities potentially exposed to contaminated soil, air, water, food, and physical hazards through health education, behavior change, remediation, and continued environmental monitoring. Finally, this funding, if awarded, will allow the CO-AP to continue to provide the necessary public health information to help environmental officials mitigate exposures, promote environmental justice and health equity, promote and achieve safe siting of child care facilities, help regulators make new policies and laws, and help Coloradans better protect their health.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).