United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office Health, Education, and Human Services Division author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 2000-05-02 monographic deposited born digital 84 p. GA 1.13:HEHS-00-80 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-00-80 P0b002ee180385e50 f:he00080 DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-28 GAOREPORTS-HEHS-00-80 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-HEHS-00-80 HEHS-00-80 Toxic substances Strategic planning Data collection Pesticides Air pollution control Environmental monitoring Surveys Interagency relations Performance measures Superfund Program National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey EPA National Human Adipose Tissue Survey EPA National Human Exposure Assessment Survey NIH National Toxicology Program NIH National Toxicology Program Human Exposure Initiative Letter Report HEHS

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed efforts to collect environmental health data, focusing on the: (1) extent to which states, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) collect human exposure data on potentially harmful chemicals, including data to identify at-risk populations; and (2) main barriers hindering further progress in such efforts.<p/>GAO noted that: (1) federal and state efforts to collect human exposure data are limited, despite some recent expansions; (2) HHS and EPA have been able to take advantage of improved technology to measure exposures for more people and for a broader range of chemicals; (3) still, with existing resources, HHS and EPA surveys together measure in the general population only about 6 percent of the more than 1,400 toxic chemicals in GAO's review; (4) for those toxic chemicals that GAO reviewed, the portion measured ranged from 2 percent of chemicals prioritized for safety testing to about 23 percent of those chemicals most often found at Superfund sites and considered to pose a significant threat to human health; (5) even for those chemicals that are measured, information is often insufficient to identify smaller population groups at high risk, such as children in inner cities and people living in polluted locations who may have particularly high exposures; (6) at the state level, efforts are similarly limited; (7) almost all state officials said they highly valued human exposure data for populations within their borders, and many provided specific examples of how such data have provided useful information for interpreting citizens' health risks and guiding public health actions; (8) three main barriers limit federal and state agencies' abilities to make more progress; (9) first, federal and state laboratories often lack the capacity to conduct measurements needed to collect human exposure data--additionally, for most of the chemicals on GAO's list, no laboratory method has been developed for measuring the chemical levels in human tissues; (10) the second barrier, particularly voiced by state officials, relates to the lack of information to help set test results in context; (11) public health officials said they need more information on typical exposures in the general population so that they can compare this information with people's levels at specific sites or with specific populations in their states; (12) they also said they needed more research to relate exposure levels to health effects for the chemicals of concern in their states; (13) the third barrier, of particular concern at the federal level, is that coordinated, long-term planning among federal agencies has been lacking, partly because of sporadic agency commitments to human exposure measurement and monitoring; and (14) HHS and EPA officials indicated that they have been discussing the merits of establishing a coordinated interagency human exposure program, but they have not yet formalized or agreed upon a long-term strategy. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-00-80/html/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-00-80.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-00-80/pdf/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-00-80.pdf GAO/HEHS-00-80 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-00-80 Letter Report GAO/HEHS-00-80; Toxic Chemicals: Long-Term Coordinated Strategy Needed to; Toxic substances Strategic planning Data collection Pesticides Air pollution control Environmental monitoring Surveys Interagency relations Performance measures Superfund Program National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey EPA National Human Adipose Tissue Survey EPA National Human Exposure Assessment Survey NIH National Toxicology Program NIH National Toxicology Program Human Exposure Initiative Title 42 Section 242k 42 U.S.C. 242k