PFAS Test Results Available to Study Participants
Westfield –In the coming days, residents who participated in a PFAS Environmental Sampling project will receive individual results from the study mailed to their individual homes. This is the second local project done by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) in the city, to study the presence of PFAS in participants’ homes.
ATSDR began its Exposure Assessment (EA) project in 2019, which included blood serum sampling from 459 people from 247 Westfield residents. The EA data collection was completed in 2019 and the results were reported in 2021.
Westfield was one of two EA sites where an additional Environmental Sampling (ES) project took place. The ES consisted of the collection of indoor dust samples from households using a filter system. The project also collected samples of indoor air, dust from the homes’ vacuum cleaners (to get larger dust samples,) samples taken with a wet wipe and soil samples.
Residents who participated in the initial EA were invited to participate in this Environmental Sampling project. The field work for this sampling was done in spring 2022 at 48 voluntary residences, and the letters are now going out to the individual homes.
Once the volunteer participants have all been reached regarding their results, Mayor Mike McCabe, together ATSDR will host a community forum to discuss the results.
ATSDR also shared results of a study that measured outdoor levels of PFAS and related compounds that were studied in June of 2022 at the Westfield Intermediary School. Samples of outdoor air were collected using either a low flow or high flow pump. The low flow pump was the same pump used to collect indoor samples at participants’ homes, the high flow pump was used to draw more air into the monitor so lower levels of PFAS could be measured. The high flow pump is only used in the outdoor samples and can detect levels about 10 times lower than the low flow pump. This study found no appreciable levels of PFAS in the collected samples.
To learn more about what ATSDR is doing, please log onto Learn about PFAS | ATSDR (cdc.gov)