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OVERVIEW
The health of our land, water, and living resources can be affected by environmental exposures to toxicological or pathogenic disease agents (collectively referred to as “environmental contaminants”). The Environmental Health Program brings together interdisciplinary teams of natural-science expertise and laboratory capabilities (hydrologists; geologists; chemists; toxicologists; ecologists; microbiologists; and geospatial, process, and statistical modelers) to address scientific understandings of environmental contaminants, how they move through the environment and interact with it, and how to mitigate health hazards if they exist.
The work focuses on potential toxicants such as mercury, arsenic, hormones, per- and polyfluoralkyl substances (PFAS), and pesticides; pathogens such as avian influenza, viruses, and antibiotic-resistant bacteria; and naturally occurring toxins such as algal toxins. The integration of natural-science disciplines produces extensive, comprehensive, peer-reviewed science and actionable data.
The program also provides decision tools for situational awareness, planning, and forecasting that show how environmental contaminants originate and move through the environment to points of exposure, and whether they pose a health hazard. In this way, the program science approach produces a foundation of knowledge for a range of land and resource management and related economic decisions such as maintaining the safety of harvested fish and wildlife species; the reuse of solid and liquid wastes from municipal, energy, and mineral activities; protection of recreational and drinking water resources; and other ecological and public health matters potentially related to environmental contaminants.
REIMBURSABLE ACTIVITIES
The Environmental Health program participates in reimbursable activities with various Federal, State, Tribal, and international partners, including Interior bureaus (NPS, FWS), other Federal agencies (EPA, National Institutes of Health [NIH], DOD, CDC, OSTP, NOAA, NASA), States (various State environmental and public health agencies), and consortia such as the American Water Works Association, Water Research Foundation, and various National Academy of Sciences groups.
