Inhalational Chlorine Injuries at Public Aquatic Venues - California, 2008-2015.

In June 2015, personnel from California's Contra Costa Health Services Environmental Health and Hazardous Materials (hazmat) divisions were alerted to a possible chemical release at a swimming pool in an outdoor municipal water park. Approximately 50 bathers were in the pool when symptoms began; 34 (68%) experienced vomiting, coughing, or eye irritation. Among these persons, 17 (50%) were treated at the scene by Contra Costa's Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and released, and 17 (50%) were transported to local emergency departments; five patients also were evaluated later at an emergency department or by a primary medical provider.

Physical, Mental, and Financial Impacts From Drought in Two California Counties, 2015.

Objectives: To evaluate health impacts of drought during the most severe drought in California's recorded history with a rapid assessment method.

Methods: We conducted Community Assessments for Public Health Emergency Response during October through November 2015 in Tulare County and Mariposa County to evaluate household water access, acute stressors, exacerbations of chronic diseases and behavioral health issues, and financial impacts. We evaluated pairwise associations by logistic regression with pooled data.

Geothermal Gases--Community Experiences, Perceptions, and Exposures in Northern California.

Lake County, California, is in a high geothermal-activity area. Over the past 30 years, the city of Clearlake has reported health effects and building evacuations related to geothermal venting. Previous investigations in Clearlake revealed hydrogen sulfide at levels known to cause health effects and methane at levels that can cause explosion risks.

Primary prevention of occupational asthma: identifying and controlling exposures to asthma-causing agents.

Background: Primary prevention of occupational asthma requires timely identification and regulation of asthma-causing agents.

Methods: We examined 39 substances identified as causing allergic occupational asthma in the US to determine the basis for their identification and their regulatory status. We compared them with occupational asthmagens identified and regulated in the UK and Germany.

An association between asthma and BMI in adolescents: results from the California Healthy Kids Survey.

We examined the relationship between asthma prevalence and BMI in a cross-sectional survey of 471,969 adolescents. The size of the survey allowed us to investigate this relationship with much greater resolution than previously possible. Both lifetime and current asthma prevalence increased monotonically with increasing BMI, starting with individuals as low as the 45th to 55th percentiles of BMI.

Training in environmental health research for action: the Shanghai-California Environmental Health Training Program.

The Shanghai Center for Disease Control and Prevention (SCDC) was created in 1998; in 2001, with support from Fogarty International Center, the intergovernmental Shanghai-California Environmental Health Training Program was formed. Providing U.S.

Asthma prevalence in Hispanic and Asian American ethnic subgroups: results from the California Healthy Kids Survey.

Objectives: Asthma prevalence for different ethnic groups in the United States, beyond white, black and Hispanic, is seldom reported. We compared the prevalence of asthma diagnosis among various Hispanic and Asian American ethnic subgroups using data collected from the school-based California Healthy Kids Survey.

Methods: The California Healthy Kids Survey was administered to 462 147 public school students in the seventh, ninth, and 11th grades throughout California during the 2001-2002 and 2002-2003 school years.

Community exposures to airborne agricultural pesticides in California: ranking of inhalation risks.

We assessed inhalation risks to California communities from airborne agricultural pesticides by probability distribution analysis using ambient air data provided by the California Air Resources Board and the California Department of Pesticide Regulation. The pesticides evaluated include chloropicrin, chlorothalonil, chlorpyrifos, S,S,S-tributyl phosphorotrithioate, diazinon, 1,3-dichloropropene, dichlorvos (naled breakdown product), endosulfan, eptam, methidathion, methyl bromide, methyl isothiocyanate (MITC; metam sodium breakdown product), molinate, propargite, and simazine. Risks were estimated for the median and 75th and 95th percentiles of probability (50, 25, and 5% of the exposed populations).

Self-reported asthma prevalence in adults in California.

Data from the 1998 California Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) were examined. The BRFSS is an ongoing statewide telephone survey of randomly selected adults. The prevalence of self-reported lifetime asthma was 13.

MCS: the status of population-based research.

MCS has been studied predominantly in clinical and occupational settings. Since the mid-1990's, a few investigators have examined dimensions of this controversial syndrome in the general population. In this discussion, the role of epidemiology in learning about MCS is presented.