Environmental Health Initiative Priorities

During the July 2003 Wingspread Summit, Pollution Toxic Chemicals and Mental Retardation: Framing a National Blueprint for Health Promotion and Disability Prevention, participants developed a list of over 100 recommendations to advance an environmental health agenda for the developmental disabilities community. In August of 2004, AAIDD's Environmental Health Initiative's Advisory Board took these recommendations and prioritized them into a few key action areas with regard to research and science issues, educational and outreach issues, and policy and legislative issues.

Education, Outreach and Training
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1. Develop and promote best practices for healthy indoor environments to include home, work and schools.
2. Educate and train health care professionals and caregivers about environmental health hazards and identify their training networks to disseminate information.
3. Educate and train parents, advocates and families about environmental health hazards and promote widespread dissemination of this information.
4. Educate policy-makers about environmental health hazards and identify proposed or existing legislation they can support or promote.

Policy and Legislative Issues
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1. Develop and employ occupational safety measures and health standards to decrease exposure to neurotoxicants based on environmental health research.
2. Standardize maternal screening for lead, mercury, thyroid problems and universal screening for lead in children and adults.
3. Require new chemicals to undergo neurodevelopmental testing (such as with the European Union's proposed regulations known as REACH).
4. Promote healthy environments for all schools and day care facilities including environmental monitoring and funding for Healthy High Performance Schools (HHPSA).
5. Promote legislation to allocate funding for CDC programs to bio-monitor for 140 neurotoxicants including pesticides, heavy metals, PCBs, and dioxin.

Research and Science
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1. Research the interactive effects of chemical mixtures in "real-world" situations to better understand the link between toxic exposures and developmental disabilities. For example, encourage full funding for the on-going National Children's Study.
2. Research the interactions and associations of other risk factors such as pollution, health status, poverty, nutrition, and socio-economic status on developmental disabilities.
3. Research heightened sensitivities and impacts of toxic exposures on those with mental retardation and developmental disabilities.
4. Ensure research involves people with disabilities and their families in the planning and design of research initiatives as well as appropriate representation in studies.
5. Communicate research results about environmental hazards effectively and clearly to the developmental disability population.
6. Encourage more research funding for community-based research that includes mental retardation.
7. Promoting the development of a research-based, standardized assessment battery for determining the presence of behavioral and nervous system disability.