The Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene (WSLH) Environmental Health Division has been awarded $51,000 by the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) to support development of a test method for PFAS in human serum. The ability to assess exposure to PFAS in the Wisconsin population is currently a gap that the funding will help to fill.
The analytical method will be based on the CDC NHANES method, will be CLIA-compliant, and is expected to capture over 30 individual PFAS compounds. The work will be performed by the WSLH Chemical Emergency Response (CER) program, with an early autumn 2020 target date.
This effort features partnerships with the WI Dept. of Health Services (WDHS) and the Survey of the Health of Wisconsin (SHOW). Appropriate medical interpretation of the data is a critical component of exposure assessment, and WDHS will provide that. Once the method is in place, award funds will be used to obtain a large set of archived SHOW serum specimens. The testing of these specimens will allow the assessment of historic PFAS exposure in the WI population, and allow the evaluation of exposure trends as prospective data are generated.