2021 Year In Review

Highlights

Despite ongoing pandemic challenges in 2021, ATSDR adapted and continued to fulfill its mission to protect communities from health effects related to exposure to harmful hazardous substances found in the environment. ATSDR leveraged meaningful relationships at the state and local levels to address harmful odors in a New Jersey shopping center, created a website to highlight the work of APPLETREE grantees, connected ALS patients to clinical trials, and advanced the knowledge base of PFAS. In these stories, we encourage you to see for yourselves how ATSDR continuously strives to protect families and communities from harmful environmental exposures.

An Asian woman stops to talk to a man while pushing an older Asian woman in a wheel chair along a paved wooded path.

APPLETREE

Clothes on a conveyor belt in a laundromat.
ATSDR is highlighting the work done by the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH), an APPLETREE recipient whose responsibilities included evaluating the health effects of an environmental exposure at the Marlboro Mall and recommending actions to address environmental releases and odors from a dry-cleaning facility.
Show More
APPLETREE: Addressing Concerns about Odors in a New Jersey Shopping Center
For 35 years, APPLETREE has provided funding to states to investigate and respond to requests relate...

Choose Safe Places Program

A group of 5 children sitting down smiling and laughing with colorful books in the background.
ATSDR's Choose Safe Places for Early Care and Education (CSPECE) Program encourages careful consideration about where to place early care and education facilities, such as childcare centers.
Mapping the Success of the Choose Safe Places Program
The CSPECE program helps towns, cities, and states adopt practices that will make sure early childca...

National ALS Registry

A woman in a dark red shirt standing next to a man in a blue shirt and blue jeans in a wheelchair.
The National Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Registry uses a novel approach to link persons with ALS (PALS) to scientists conducting research with the goal of slowing disease progression and getting closer to a cure.
National ALS Registry Expands Research
This ALS Registry article was featured in the 2021 ATSDR annual report.

ATSDR PFAS

A little girl in a pink shirt drinking a glass of water.
PFAS are a public health concern because they can stay in people’s bodies for a long time and have been linked to harmful health effects in humans.
ATSDR PFAS Activities and Research: Building on Lessons of the Past to Advance the Future
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a group of thousands of manufactured chemicals that h...

GRASP

A blue map of the United States glowing in the dark.
ATSDR's GRASP team collaborated to design and update cartographic products generated by ATSDR's OCHHA site teams to determine the relationship between EtO concentrations in the air and proximity to sterilization and chemical manufacturing facilities.
Show More
GRASP Supports Environmental Exposure Work to Protect Community Health
The GRASP mission is to provide leadership, expertise, and education in the application of geography...
Print
Content Source:
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry