DOH staff from the Wadsworth Center (WC) and the Center for Environmental Health (CEH) attended an in-person grantee meeting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Environmental Health Laboratories facility in Chamblee, GA on March 17-19, 2026. The meeting was organized for state recipients of CDC funding to report on human biomonitoring conducted within their respective jurisdictions. In 2024, NYS received a $2.51 million award to extend Biomonitoring NY to address gaps in underrepresented populations and communities, and continue to build laboratory capabilities and capacities to conduct human biomonitoring. WC staff in attendance included Dr. Patrick Parsons, Director, WC Division of Environmental Health Sciences (DEHS), and the Project Director for Biomonitoring NY; Dr. Kurunthachalam Kannan, DEHS Deputy Director. CEH staff included Ms. Karen Wilson and Ms. Anne Pysnik from CEH’s Bureau of Environmental and Occupational Epidemiology. Five New York presentations were given at the grantee meeting:
- Give me your blood (and urine!): Comparing the implementation and effectiveness of two different recruitment methods used for Biomonitoring NY (Anne Pysnik, Karen Wilson, Monica Nordstrom, Ming Liu, Wanhsiang Hsu, Arfin Shammi, Gena Gallinger, Thomas Sweck, Patrick Parsons, & Steven Forand)
- Mercury speciation in whole blood: why Liquid Chromatography with Vapor Generation coupled to ICP-MS is preferable to GC-ID-ICP-MS for biomonitoring studies (Patrick Parsons, Emily Pacer, & Christopher Palmer)
- An update on New York State’s inter-laboratory exercise for serum per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) (Kurunthachalam Kannan, Kayla Mehigan, Elizabeth Mullin, & Patrick J. Parsons)
- Leveraging Existing Relationships & Forging New Partnerships for Successful Biomonitoring Sample Collection (Karen Wilson, Anne Pysnik, Arfin Shammi, Gena Gallinger, Thomas Sweck, Patrick Parsons, & Steven Forand)
- Biomonitoring New York (BNY) – a population-based assessment of exposure to trace metals/metalloids, PFAS, and universal pesticides in a sample of 2,270 adults from across the state outside of NY City (Patrick Parsons, Steve Forand, Christopher Palmer, Karen Wilson, Kayla Mehigan, Anne Pysnik, Elizabeth Mullin, Monica Nordstom, Ming Liu, Charelle Trim, Peter Chutcharavan, & Kurunthachalam Kannan)
The meeting was an opportunity for states to share strategies and success stories on their biomonitoring programs as well as challenges. The NYS flagship “Biomonitoring NY” program that was recently completed was showcased – over 2,200 NYS residents tested for more than 80 environmental contaminants, and with more than 100,000 test results reported to individual participants.