BACKGROUND: Older yet still abundant munitions such as tetryl present easily forgotten health hazards and associated needs for worker protection. CASE PRESENTATION: Symptoms and findings from 22 workers who were exposed to tetryl are summarized. CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights the health hazards from exposure to tetryl. Occupational health professionals need to maintain vigilance to protect workers from the risks of handling older munitions.
Occupational Health ; West Virginia

BACKGROUND: Increasing the participation rate in health screenings is a major challenge. In West Virginia, USA, where a statewide, state-funded school-based health screening program has been offered to fifth-grade students and their parents/guardians for nearly 20 years, more than 50% of eligible participants consistently opt-out. Consequently, the purpose of this investigation is to determine a parent/guardian's reasons for deciding whether to participate in a school-based health screening. METHODS: A cross-sectional study design was used and a total of 216 parents/guardians of fourth-grade students from 10 elementary schools in the northeast region of West Virginia participated in the study. The survey, based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB), was used to explore a parent/guardian's intentions when opting in or out of a school-based health screening for their child, and included items that represented direct determinants, indirect determinants, and behavioral intentions. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to measure the questionnaire's potential to predict intentions and identify the predictive strength of each direct determinant. RESULTS: Results show that attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control in the TPB (43%) provided strong evidence for predicting participation intentions. Specifically, attitude (β=0.73, P<0.001) was the strongest predictor of intention, followed by subjective norms (β=−0.17, P<0.01). CONCLUSION: This study suggests that strategies to facilitate positive attitudes and increase parental awareness of health screening initiatives may influence participation rates within community- and school-based programming.
Child ; Cross-Sectional Studies ; Humans ; Intention ; Mass Screening ; Parents ; West Virginia

OBJECTIVES: Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a powerful tool for assessing exposure in epidemiologic studies. We used GIS to determine the geographic extent of contamination by perfluorooctanoic acid, C8 (PFOA) that was released into the environment from the DuPont Washington Works Facility located in Parkersburg, West Virginia. METHODS: Paper maps of pipe distribution networks were provided by six local public water districts participating in the community cross-sectional survey, the C8 Health Project. Residential histories were also collected in the survey and geocoded. We integrated the pipe networks and geocoded addresses to determine which addresses were serviced by one of the participating water districts. The GIS-based water district assignment was then compared to the participants' self-reported source of public drinking water. RESULTS: There were a total of 151,871 addresses provided by the 48,800 participants of the C8 Health Project that consented to geocoding. We were able to successfully geocode 139,067 (91.6%) addresses, and of these, 118,209 (85.0%) self-reported water sources were confirmed using the GIS-based method of water district assignment. Furthermore, the GIS-based method corrected 20,858 (15.0%) self-reported public drinking water sources. Over half (54%) the participants in the lowest GIS-based exposure group self-reported being in a higher exposed water district. CONCLUSIONS: Not only were we able to correct erroneous self-reported water sources, we were also able to assign water districts to participants with unknown sources. Without the GIS-based method, the reliance on only self-reported data would have resulted in exposure misclassification.
Cross-Sectional Studies ; Drinking Water* ; Drinking* ; Epidemiologic Studies ; Geographic Information Systems* ; Geographic Mapping ; Methods ; Washington ; Water ; West Virginia