The New York State Department of Health today announced that the Wadsworth Center, New York’s Public Health Laboratory and the Center for Environmental Health, has received more than $2.5 million in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) federal funding to ensure that adults in environmental justice communities are adequately represented in New York State Biomonitoring Programs. These programs provide access to important information about New Yorkers’ levels of toxic chemicals in the body like lead, cadmium, mercury and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), as well as information about steps people can take to reduce exposures.
“As the nation’s premier state public health laboratory, the State Health Department’s Wadsworth Center has the distinction of being one of only a few labs in the country capable of analyzing human samples for traces of a broad range of chemicals like PFAS, which can cause cancer,” State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald said. “This award will allow us to learn more about these exposures and enhance our ability to share our expertise with other states and address health inequities by helping us protect the most vulnerable New Yorkers from exposure to environmental contaminants.”
Director of Wadsworth’s Division of Environmental Health Sciences (DEHS) Patrick Parsons, Ph.D. said, “Harmful chemicals get into our bodies from the air we breathe, to the water we drink, the food we eat and even from the personal care products we use. Biomonitoring tells us if we are exposed to these chemicals by measuring them directly in human samples. The Wadsworth Center has been at the forefront of research into human biomonitoring for over 30 years and this award will also ensure that the people most impacted by environmental exposures are adequately represented in our studies.”
According to the CDC, biomonitoring is the most health-relevant assessment of exposure, because it indicates the amount of the chemicals that people are exposed to. The goal of Biomonitoring NY is to establish the typical range of approximately 40 chemicals and metals in New York residents’ biometric samples, which helps in understanding patterns and trends in environmental exposures and can be helpful in investigations to limit those exposures and protect public health.
Funds will be used to work with community partners in environmental justice communities to provide opportunities for people living in the community to voluntarily provide biometric samples to be tested, and to host educational events geared toward underserved and lower income New Yorkers. Results will be provided after samples are analyzed by Wadsworth. These events will make it more convenient for them to voluntarily participate in sampling efforts. Partners may include local advocacy groups, faith-based institutions, health care institutions and service organizations.
This latest award from the CDC builds on a five-year, $4.5 million CDC award to support Biomonitoring NY as part of a long history of collaboration between Wadsworth and the Department’s Center for Environmental Health in conducting biomonitoring studies. The CDC funding announced today is expected to total more than $2.5 million over a three-year period. Over the years, the Department has been investing in a variety of biomonitoring projects across New York State in communities affected by specific sources of environmental contamination, and random sampling efforts such as Biomonitoring New York, are designed to provide a better understanding of levels of toxic chemicals in New Yorkers.
In 2019, Wadsworth DEHS was awarded more than $7.5 million in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding to become one of three lab hubs nationally to support targeted analyses for the NIH Human Health Exposure Analysis Resource (HHEAR). Over the last two decades, Wadsworth’s DEHS has built a state-of-the-art biomonitoring laboratory capable of measuring hundreds of toxic chemicals in human samples.
More information about Biomonitoring New York can be found here.
More information about the DEHS Biomonitoring laboratories can be found here.
More information about PFAS and Health Projects can be found here.