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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Robert J Roscoe, MS, NIOSH/Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations and Field Studies, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mail Stop R-21, 4676 Columbia Parkway, Cincinnati, OH 45226, 513 841-4424, RRoscoe@cdc.gov
CDC’s (NIOSH) Adult Blood Lead Epidemiology and Surveillance (ABLES) program is a state-based surveillance program of laboratory-reported adult blood lead levels. The public health objective of the ABLES program is Objective 20.7 in Healthy People 2010 (Reduce the number of adults who have blood lead levels of 25 mcg/dL or greater). The ABLES program aims to accomplish this objective by building state capacity to initiate or improve adult blood lead surveillance programs which can accurately measure trends in adult blood lead levels and which can effectively intervene to prevent lead exposures. For 1998-2001 combined, the ABLES states reported rates per 100,000 employed of: (1) 89.5 for adults tested at any blood lead level, (2) 11.8 for adults with blood lead levels of 25 mcg/dL or higher, and (3) 2.3 for adults with levels of 40 mcg/dL or higher (level currently allowed under OSHA standard). By comparison for 1994-1997 combined, the rates were: (1) 58.3 at any blood lead level, (2) 14.9 at 25 mcg/dL or higher, and (3) 3.2 at 40 mcg/dL or higher. These and other temporal and geographic data will be presented and discussed. At present, NIOSH is the only federal funding supporter of adult surveillance for lead. For 2002, NIOSH more than doubled its funding commitment allowing for ABLES to expand to 35 funded states and for the collection of individual rather than aggregate data. NIOSH seeks to ensure future funding of state-based adult lead surveillance by building Federal and other partnerships.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Occupational Surveillance, Lead
Related Web page: www.cdc.gov/niosh/ables.html
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.