Children's Environmental Health Program 2014 Report to the Legislature
Children's Health
Protecting the health and future of our children is important to all Californians. In recognition of the fact that children are often differentially impacted by environmental contaminants, the Children’s Environmental Health Program was established in the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) by the Children’s Environmental Health Protection Act (Escutia, Chapter 731, Statutes of 1999). The program is responsible for ensuring that CalEPA’s existing expertise and programs specifically protect children’s health in California. The Children’s Environmental Health Program serves as a resource for CalEPA and the State of California, performs outreach and education for the medical and public health community as well as for the general public, and coordinates with the CalEPA boards and departments to promote policies and efforts that protect children’s health.
Children can be more affected by environmental chemicals than adults. They eat, drink, and breathe more per pound of body weight than adults. Thus, children’s exposures to contaminants in our air, water, and food are higher than an adult in the same setting. Because children are still growing and developing, they can be more sensitive to the adverse health effects of chemicals than an adult. In some cases, the effects are irreversible. It is increasingly recognized that exposures early in life affect adult health. Thus, the work of the CalEPA Boards, Departments and Offices (BDOs) reducing children’s exposures to environmental chemicals benefits Californians throughout their lifetime.
OEHHA efforts relating to children's health include:
- Art Hazards
- Children's Environmental Health Program Reports to the Legislature
- Children's Environmental Health Symposia
- Child-Specific Reference Doses (ChRDs)
- Synthetic Turf Studies
Documents
Children's Environmental Health Program 2014 Report to the Legislature
Children's Health News
Presentations from the 2016 Children’s Environmental Health Symposium exploring "New Findings from California”.
Frequently asked questions on the environmental health study of synthetic turf
Request that NTP conduct toxicological studies to enhance our understanding of the health impacts of chemicals released from synthetic turf, with an emphasis on the crumb rubber in the fields.
In April 2016 OEHHA, Western States PEHSU at UCSF, and UC Berkeley CIRCLE held the children’s environmental health symposium exploring "New Findings from California”.
The first Synthetic Turf Scientific Advisory Panel Meeting was held on Monday, February 8, 2016.
Biographies are available for the members of the Synthetic Turf Scientific Advisory Panel. This panel provides advice on the design and implementation of OEHHA’s synthetic turf study.
Three public workshops and an interactive webinar held to receive public comments on OEHHA's synthetic turf study. An informational poster and agendas for the workshops are available.
A study by the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment suggests heat exposure may lead to a greater risk of infant mortality.
In 2015, OEHHA hosted is annual Children's Environmental Health Symposium, this time focusing on the impacts of climate change on children's health.
A Story of Health was developed by ATSDR, the Collaborative on Health and the Environment (CHE), the University of California, San Francisco, Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit (UCSF PEHSU), the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, California EPA (OEHHA), and the Science and Environmental Health Network (SEHN) to explain how environments interact with genes to influence health across the lifespan.