A Health Study of New York State Communities Exposed to PFAS Contaminated Drinking Water

Project Summary / AbstractPer and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS) include compounds that are, or have been, manufactured in highvolumes for use in a wide variety of commercial and industrial products. A subset of PFAS are of particularconcern because they are very stable in the environment and accumulate in human serum/plasma. A person'sinternal dose can continue beyond cessation of environmental exposure. PFOA and PFOS elicit a wide varietyof adverse effects in experimental models; however, epidemiological studies have observed mixedassociations due to methodological limitations and challenges. The objective of our proposed project, ?A HealthStudy of New York State Communities Exposed to PFAS Contaminated Drinking Water?, is to complete thecore protocol as prescribed by the CDC/ATSDR by developing a cohort from the greater Hoosick Falls andNewburgh communities in New York State (NYS). In Hoosick Falls, PFOA levels in the public drinking watersupply were between 500 and 600 ng/L (ppt) in 2016. In Newburgh, samples of city drinking water showedPFOS levels in excess of 140 ppt, PFHxS levels in excess of 70 ppt, and PFOA levels in excess of 25 ppt. Wealso propose additional research projects that are responsive to these communities, while serving to enhancethe core protocol and inform future PFAS related hypotheses generalizable to other communities and studysites across the U.S. For this project, we will (1) conduct historical dose reconstruction with PK modeling ofserum PFAS concentrations for the greater Hoosick Falls and Newburgh communities, including historicalmunicipal drinking water PFAS concentration modeling as needed; (2) enroll 2,175 study participants to cross-sectionally examine health endpoints related to PFAS exposure in Hoosick Falls and Newburgh; and (3)enhance the core protocol and inform future work by leveraging stored blood samples from recent PFASbiomonitoring activities in these communities to prospectively measure PFAS and related health endpointchanges over time and leveraging archived neonatal blood spots collected as part of the NYS NewbornScreening Program and vital records to measure PFAS and immune function markers among core studyparticipants. This project will be conducted collaboratively between the University at Albany School of PublicHealth (UASPH) and the NYS Department of Health (NYSDOH). The UASPH was created in 1985 as a uniquepartnership with the NYSDOH; this partnership provides a platform for conducting large, statewide, prospectivecohort studies examining emerging issues, particularly among vulnerable populations. Together, we havedeveloped infrastructure for recruitment, tracking, and retention of our study populations. This existinginfrastructure and established community relationships will be leveraged to recruit a study cohort to examinethe health effects of exposure to PFAS contaminated drinking water.