The Agency
for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), a division of the federal Department
of Health and Human Services, has agreed to perform a Public
Health Assessment (PHA) in Cheshire.
The PHA will be managed and executed by the CT Department of Public
Health via their cooperative agreement with the ATSDR. Here's "What you can expect" from the
ATSDR's involvement.
What is a Public
Health Assessment (PHA) ?
The health assessment process for any site follows the
same lines of information : all available
existing environmental contamination data is assembled and evaluated from a
toxicology/epidemiology perspective , pathways of exposure are evaluated ,
community concerns are obtained through various means,and existing health
outcome data are evaluated. The health assessment then tries to tie the
different sources of information into a complete picture of the site. For
instance community concerns are evaluated in regards to complete exposure
pathways and health outcome data are evaluated with consideration of biological
plausibility from toxicity assessments. The final document tries to come to
conclusions about the likelihood of risks from the site and makes
recommendations for follow-up if warranted. Such follow-up could include
further health studies or more environmental monitoring.
To learn more, check out this online tutorial entitled The
Assessment Process, An Interactive Learning Program.
What will come from the PHA ? The PHA will result in a PHA document made available for public review and comment. Here is an example of a completed PHA document.
Right-click
your mouse and choose "Save Target as..." to read the official
letter of announcement from the ATSDR (in PDF format). Adobe Acrobat Reader required for viewing.
Back to PHA main and Cheshire's
PHA Findings