Why Communicating Biomonitoring Success is Needed
What is biomonitoring? The term usually causes confusion for people who are not actively involved in environmental public health. Chatting with friends and family, the most common assumption I have heard is that biomonitoring involves monitoring of vital signs like blood pressure, heart rate or glucose. But that’s not biomonitoring. Simply put, biomonitoring is the measurement of chemicals in blood, urine or serum.
The next common question is, “Why would I want to participate?” Biomonitoring measurements are valuable to communities dealing with chemical contamination and who want to learn more about their exposure levels. In addition, biomonitoring data can inform policy decisions and be used to track trends in exposure over time. For example, biomonitoring measurements showing high levels of lead in the American population were a major factor in the removal of lead from gasoline. Subsequent biomonitoring measurements show a steep decline in lead levels over time.
Biomonitoring is an integral part of public health; however, state and local level data are limited. Through its National Biomonitoring Program, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) uses biomonitoring of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) participants to publish national level exposure data for over 400 chemicals in the National Exposure Report (NER). The data in the NER can be used to help drive national policy but do not offer information on state or local levels of exposure to chemicals.
To address state and local-level needs, CDC launched the State Biomonitoring Cooperative Agreement to help state public health laboratories build their ability to measure chemicals of concern in their communities. Communities have successfully used these measurements to inform parents about their child’s exposure during formative years, educate mothers on their lead and mercury exposure to protect their babies during pregnancy, determine PFAS levels in a statewide sample of Michigan firefighters, and inform private well users about their pesticide and metal exposures. Each of these stories powerfully demonstrates the need for and importance of biomonitoring measurements in state public health laboratories; however, their power is limited if programs do not know how to communicate clearly. In an age where we consume information on-the-go, it is important to communicate with multiple audiences with varied backgrounds quickly and effectively.
At CDC, we are encouraging recipients of the state biomonitoring cooperative agreement to share successes of their programs broadly. Success is anything that helps a program accomplish one of its goals. In the laboratory, success could mean the development of a new method to provide results that have never been reported before or solve a crucial problem such as sample shipment. Success could also mean the bridging of new relationships within a laboratory’s organization, or with communities they will engage. Working with a simple formula, we hope to help programs show the challenge or problem encountered in their work, the action they took to address it, and the resulting impact. Programs can share these stories with numerous audiences including media, decision-makers, or community members.
A key component of the biomonitoring work is the active participation of people who want to learn more about their chemical exposure. This continues to be a difficult step for all biomonitoring programs. These stories can help build trust in communities by demonstrating what biomonitoring is and how it can help inform people about their exposure. As the work continues, biomonitoring can help state and local officials make decisions that benefit not only the study participants but also all of their residents.
The findings and conclusions in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the US Department of Health and Human Services, or the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Division of Laboratory Sciences.