Cumulative Risk Webinar Series: What We Learned

This document summarized key science and science-policy issues for advancing the practice and utility of cumulative risk assessment identified during a webinar series present from August 2012 through December 2013 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the public

Mixture toxicity, cumulative risk, and environmental justice in United States federal policy, 1980–2016

Toxic chemicals — “toxicants” — have been studied and regulated as single entities, and, carcinogens aside, almost all toxicants, single or mixed and however altered, have been thought harmless in very low doses or very weak concentrations. Yet much work in recent decades has shown that toxicants can injure wildlife, laboratory animals, and humans following exposures previously expected to be harmless. Additional work has shown that toxicants can act not only individually and cumulatively but also collectively and even synergistically and that they affect disadvantaged communities inordinately — and therefore, as argued by reformers, unjustly. As late as December 2016, the last full month before the inauguration of a president promising to rescind major environmental regulations, the United States federal environmental-health establishment, as led by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), had not developed coherent strategies to mitigate such risks, to alert the public to their plausibility, or to advise leadership in government and industry about their implications. To understand why, we examined archival materials, reviewed online databases, read internal industry communications, and interviewed experts. We confirmed that external constraints, statutory and judicial, had been in place prior to EPA’s earliest interest in mixture toxicity, but we found no overt effort, certainly no successful effort, to loosen those constraints. We also found internal constraints: concerns that fully committing to the study of complex mixtures involving numerous toxicants would lead to methodological drift within the toxicological community and that trying to act on insights from such study could lead only to regulatory futility. Interaction of these constraints, external and internal, shielded the EPA by circumscribing its responsibilities and by impeding movement toward paradigmatic adjustment, but it also perpetuated scientifically dubious policies, such as those limiting the evaluation of commercial chemical formulations, including pesticide formulations, to only those ingredients said by their manufacturers to be active. In this context, regulators’ disregard of synergism contrasted irreconcilably with biocide manufacturers’ understanding that synergism enhanced lethality and patentability. In the end, an effective national response to mixture toxicity, cumulative risk, and environmental injustice did not emerge. In parallel, though, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, which was less constrained, pursued with scientific investigation what the EPA had not pursued with regulatory action.https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-021-00764-

Blood and urine levels of long half-life toxicants by nativity among immigrants to the United States

One's place of birth is a major determinant of his or her exposure to environmental toxicants. By understanding biological burdens of long half-life toxicants by race and nativity we can better understand geographic variation in toxicant distribution. We used the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1999–2006) biomonitoring data to examine differences in blood and urine levels of long half-life environmental toxicants of foreign-born relative to US-born people by race/ethnicity. We log transformed blood and urine measures of 51 environmental toxicants. We then used “seemingly unrelated regression,” a robust technique for making multiple comparisons across a group of variables with correlated error terms, to examine differences in blood and urine toxicants by nativity and race. We found that, compared to native-born Americans, the foreign-born are generally more likely to be exposed to metals (p < 0.001) and organochlorine pesticides (p < 0.001), but less likely to be exposed to dioxin-like compounds (p < 0.001) or polyflourinated compounds (p < 0.001). While levels of toxicants varied greatly by region of birth, US-born participants had consistently higher levels of dioxin-like compounds and polyflourinated compounds

Collaborating for Success: A Case Study on Mentoring, Partnering, and Teaching

Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) graduates seeking employment in academic libraries are often expected to possess user instruction and public service skills. However, it is difficult for students to achieve this experience through coursework alone. To address this disconnect, librarians at the University of Maryland (UMD) College Park Libraries created a Research and Teaching Fellowship to allow MLIS students at UMD to gain practical instruction experience. The authors present the experience of one MLIS student in collaboration with a subject librarian and a faculty member to plan, implement, and assess an information literacy instruction session for an undergraduate course in public health. The article discusses the benefits of mentoring for the MLIS student and subject liaison librarian, and the impact on the undergraduate student learning. This article addresses a gap in the literature on opportunities for MLIS students to gain instruction, collaboration, and assessment experience by presenting a successful model in place at UMD

Guide to Considering Children’s Health When Developing EPA Actions: Implementing Executive Order 13045 and EPA’s Policy on Evaluating Health Risks to Children

This document is a step-by-step guide to assist Agency staff in integrating children’s health considerations into EPA’s Action Development Process (ADP). It describes the provisions of Executive Order 13045 “Protection of Children from Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks” and EPA’s “Policy on Evaluating Health Risks to Children.” This guide also is designed to assist EPA staff in determining whether rules are subject to the Executive Order, whether the Agency Policy applies to an action and what should be done to address the Executive Order and/or EPA’s policy in the development of a rule or Agency action

Collaborating for Success: A Case Study on Mentoring, Partnering, and Teaching

Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) graduates seeking employment in academic libraries are often expected to possess user instruction and public service skills. However, it is difficult for students to achieve this experience through coursework alone. To address this disconnect, librarians at the University of Maryland (UMD) College Park Libraries created a Research and Teaching Fellowship to allow MLIS students at UMD to gain practical instruction experience. The authors present the experience of one MLIS student in collaboration with a subject librarian and a faculty member to plan, implement, and assess an information literacy instruction session for an undergraduate course in public health. The article discusses the benefits of mentoring for the MLIS student and subject liaison librarian, and the impact on the undergraduate student learning. This article addresses a gap in the literature on opportunities for MLIS students to gain instruction, collaboration, and assessment experience by presenting a successful model in place at UMD.​This research was supported in part by an appointment to the NLM Associate Fellowship Program sponsored by the National Library of Medicine and administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education

Long-Term Exposure to Ambient Air Pollution and Type 2 Diabetes in Adults

PURPOSE OF REVIEW We identified 24 publications from January 2010 until September 2018 in the peer-reviewed literature addressing the relationship of long-term air pollution exposures and type 2 diabetes-related morbidity and mortality among adults. We examine key methodological issues, synthesize findings, and address study strengths and limitations. We also discuss biological mechanisms, policy implications, and future research needed to address existing knowledge gaps. RECENT FINDINGS In general, the studies included in this review employed rigorous methodology with large sample sizes, appropriate study designs to maximize available cohort study or administrative data sources, and exposure modeling that accounted for spatial patterns in air pollution levels. Overall, studies suggested increased risks of type 2 diabetes-related morbidity and mortality among adults associated with increased exposures; however, findings were not uniformly positive nor statistically significant. SUMMARY Current research is particularly limited regarding the biological mechanisms involved and the relationship between ozone and diabetes. Additionally, more research is needed to distinguish clearly the effects of nitrogen oxides from those of other pollutants and to identify potential subpopulations with greater susceptibility for certain pollutant exposures. A better understanding of the potential link between long-term ambient air pollution exposures and type 2 diabetes may provide opportunities for the reduction of health risks and inform future interventions for environmental protection and diabetes management

Using Inequality Measures to Incorporate Environmental Justice into Regulatory Analyses

Formally evaluating how specific policy measures influence environmental justice is challenging, especially in the context of regulatory analyses in which quantitative comparisons are the norm. However, there is a large literature on developing and applying quantitative measures of health inequality in other settings, and these measures may be applicable to environmental regulatory analyses. In this paper, we provide information to assist policy decision makers in determining the viability of using measures of health inequality in the context of environmental regulatory analyses. We conclude that quantification of the distribution of inequalities in health outcomes across social groups of concern, considering both within-group and between-group comparisons, would be consistent with both the structure of regulatory analysis and the core definition of environmental justice. Appropriate application of inequality indicators requires thorough characterization of the baseline distribution of exposures and risks, leveraging data generally available within regulatory analyses. Multiple inequality indicators may be applicable to regulatory analyses, and the choice among indicators should be based on explicit value judgments regarding the dimensions of environmental justice of greatest interest