Abstract

The intent of this workshop was to engage federal and other organizations in a dialog that will assist EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) in:

• Developing a framework to guide this research program
• Identifying potential near-term research areas
• Pursuing opportunities to collaborate with other public health agencies and organizations

Forty-seven attendees met to discuss aspects of near-term research planning that would involve broad collaborations between several federal agencies in assessing environmental public health outcomes. Discussions on the first day focused on topics from the draft ORD Human Health Research Strategy chapter and included the following questions:

• Are the proposed approaches reasonable and realistic first steps in initiating an Environmental Public Health Outcomes research program?
• Are there other areas or activities to consider in the early stages?
• Are there existing data sets or resources that may be useful?
• Are there ongoing or planned activities within your organization or agency that may be appropriate for collaboration?

Discussions during the second session centered on the Supporting Document for the Human Health chapter of the EPA's Draft State of the Environment Report. The panelists were asked to consider the following questions in preparation for workshop discussions:

• What are the challenges in merging environmental monitoring data with health surveillance data?
• What data sets or resources exist that are useful for determining health outcomes and environmental factors?
• What are the lessons learned in carrying out these programs?
• What pilot projects could be conducted to identify opportunities to improve the understanding of environmental public health outcomes?

Contact

Dan Petersen

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