Saturday, January 18, 2025
1/18/2025
The Arkansas Department of Health (ADH) proposes to establish their cooperative agreement with the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) via their program entitled, ATSDR’s Partnership to Promote Local Efforts to Reduce Environmental Exposure (APPLETREE) by conducting and coordinating site-specific activities at hazardous waste sites in Arkansas. ADH will strive to prevent harmful environmental exposures and related health effects through health assessments and community engagement and prevention activities by applying the approaches in both Component 1 Strategy A (site assessment and community engagement) and Component 1 Strategy B (Choose Safe Places for Early Care and Education, CSPECE). ADH will work with ATSDR to further achieve their mission of serving communities by using the best available science, taking responsive public health actions, and providing accurate, up-to-date health information to prevent harmful exposures and diseases related to toxic substances. ATSDR is the federal public health agency congressionally mandated to evaluate human health effects as they relate to toxic exposures. ATSDR is charged to assess the presence and nature of health hazards at contaminated sites, to help prevent or reduce further exposure and the illnesses that result from such exposures, and to expand the familiarity about health effects from exposure to hazardous substances. More recently, ATSDR initiated the CSPECE program to prevent harmful environmental exposures to young children using education, partnerships, and outreach in the licensed childcare setting. Arkansas will strongly align itself with ATSDR’s mission and goals by conducting site-specific activities at waste sites across the state where human exposure has occurred, or where community concerns of possible exposure exist. As outlined in the cooperative agreement program logic model, the APPLETREE program enhances the goals of both ATSDR and ADH. The ATSDR’s APPLETREE program provides vital resources to ADH that assist in responding to site-specific issues that involve human exposures to hazardous substances in the environment. In turn, ADH hopes to increase ATSDR’s capability to be represented at hazardous sites in Arkansas in a timely manner. The joint efforts will result in mutually desired programmatic outcomes for communities impacted by hazardous waste sites. ATSDR seeks to build and sustain the capacity to evaluate exposures to hazardous wastes across the country. ATSDR’s primary goal is to keep communities safe from harmful environmental exposures and related diseases. To accomplish this goal, they work closely with partnering agencies to evaluate exposures at hazardous waste sites, educate communities, and seek new ways to better protect public health. Under this APPLETREE cooperative agreement, ADH plans to identify and evaluate pathways of exposure, sustain health improvement programs in communities that will prevent harmful exposures or mitigate adverse health effects due to toxic substances, and implement activities that assist in improving overall quality of life. Using an integrated team approach, ADH plans to respond to environmental exposures in a timely manner, conduct site assessments and educate communities, stakeholders, and health professionals regarding site-related risks and recommendations. For site assessments and CSPECE, ADH will develop and sustain partnerships to support all cooperative agreement activities. The health improvement initiatives ADH plans to conduct will result in measurable short-term, mid-term, and long-term outcomes, such as adopted behavior changes or increased knowledge by community members, regulators, and health professionals, alike, that reduce or eliminate exposure risks. Arkansas will demonstrate measurable progress results as reported in the outcomes listed in each work plan for Strategy A and Strategy B of Component 1.
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).