Wednesday, January 15, 2025
1/15/2025
With resources provided by this cooperative agreement, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) seeks to leverage the capability and capacity of the Massachusetts State Public Health Laboratory (MA SPHL) and the Bureau of Climate and Environmental Health (BCEH) to conduct high-quality biomonitoring program to assess human exposure to environmental chemicals. MDPH proposes to conduct biomonitoring activities specified in Strategy A, Strategy B, and Strategy C, and aims to investigate selected Massachusetts vulnerable communities that may be disproportionately affected by exposure to harmful chemicals. MA SPHL and BCEH demonstrated successful collaboration through the CDC-RFA-EH14-1402 award from 2014-2019 during a biomonitoring program that conducted both statewide surveillance and targeted biomonitoring. This previous experience will contribute to the success of the proposed project. MDPH aims to focus on Environmental Justice communities in MA where there are largely low-income and people of color population groups who are disproportionately affected by exposure to harmful chemicals. Leveraging on the successes of community engagement and existing local partnerships through the Vaccine Equity Initiative (VEI) and the place-based initiative, Advancing Health Equity in Massachusetts (AHEM), where there are the largest health disparities and prioritized for focused improvements and investments, MDPH will adapt the community outreach framework and target communities that overlap EJ, VEI and AHEM communities for strategy A. For the statewide surveillance project, BCEH will partner with the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers to advocate for the project, educate potential participants, and recruit through local community health centers across MA. The MA SPHL and the BCEH will collaborate to advocate for the program, recruit participants, administer an exposure assessment questionnaire, collect and analyze specimens, and report results to all participants. A customized results report will be provided to each participant which will be culturally and linguistically appropriate in plain language providing them with a meaningful interpretation of their results and suggested intervention strategies for reducing exposure when appropriate. Each participant will be offered the opportunity to speak with a MDPH staff to review their individual biomonitoring results and learn about exposure reduction strategies. The Analytical Chemistry laboratory in MA SPHL will perform testing of blood, urine, and serum specimens to measure the following chemicals: cadmium, lead, manganese and mercury levels in blood; antimony, arsenic, barium, cadmium, cesium, cobalt, lead, manganese, mercury, molybdenum, thallium, tungsten, and uranium in urine; and PCBs in serum. Arsenic speciation will be conducted for urine specimens with equal to or greater than 20 ppb of total arsenic detected in urine and mercury speciation will be conducted for blood specimens with equal or greater than 10 ppb total mercury levels, which will provide essential information to identify potential sources of exposure and mitigation guidance. The proposed investigation and surveillance activities will help MDPH to identify exposures to the selected environmental chemicals and to work with enrolled biomonitoring participants on steps they can take to reduce or eliminate exposure based on their results. The findings of the study may also be utilized to shape environmental policies in the future. These actions will help disproportionately affected communities to improve their health in the near future and for future generations.
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).