Recorded presentation

David Carpenter, MD, Environmental Health and Toxicology, SUNY at Albany, One University Place, B Wing, Room B242, Rensselaer, NY 12144, 518-525-2660, carpent@cnsvax.albany.edu

Dr. Carpenter will discuss his in-depth work with two Native American communities who developed "benchmark" quality community biomonitoring projects to help assess the level of chemical contamination. These projects engaged community members and health professional engagement in all aspects of study design, implementation and release of data. The impact these studies have had on public health regulations and public policies is ongoing, and Dr. Carpenter will describe the successes and obstacles these communities have experienced in their work to understand more fully the source and pathway of their chemical exposures and their work to seek remediation and preventive measures. He will also describe the role of health professionals in the community study design process as well as their engagement in the biomonitoring studies, including the kinds of training necessary for such engagement and the protocols developed for patient assessment and biomonitoring data communication of to individual study participants.

Learning Objectives:

• 1. Learn the process whereby two indigenous groups (in Alaska and New York) developed biomonitoring studies and used biomonitoring data to raise public awareness about chemical contamination. The successes and problems encountered by each study will be described.
• 2. Understand how public health officials and health professionals worked with these communities to develop the studies and how they then interacted with communities around concerns raised by study results, especially around issues of confidentiality and control of study results to the general public.
• 3. Understand how communities can work with health official to use biomonitoring to address community concerns about chemical exposures, health regulations, and preventive action.

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.

Recorded presentation