The following information was provided by EPA in conjunction with the opportunity for public comment on the draft indicators for ACE3, which ran from March 8 – April 21, 2011. The public comment period is now closed.

The three main sections of America’s Children and the Environment (ACE) present environment and contaminant, biomonitoring, and health indicators derived from nationally representative data sources updated on a regular basis. Some topics of importance to children’s environmental health do not have suitable data sources that are nationwide in scope. For some of these topics, ACE special feature indicators have been developed using data sets that are representative of a single state, or produced by one-time studies that have not been repeated. Two special features topics have been prepared for America’s Children and the Environment, Third Edition (ACE3).

THIS INFORMATION IS DISTRIBUTED SOLELY FOR THE PURPOSE OF PRE-DISSEMINATION PEER REVIEW UNDER APPLICABLE INFORMATION QUALITY GUIDELINES. IT HAS NOT BEEN FORMALLY DISSEMINATED BY EPA. IT DOES NOT REPRESENT AND SHOULD NOT BE CONSTRUED TO REPRESENT ANY AGENCY DETERMINATION OR POLICY.

The birth defects topic includes an indicator summarizing data from the Texas Birth Defects Registry. The contaminants in schools and child care facilities topic includes three indicators of conditions in educational environments. Contaminants in child care facilities are represented by indicators drawn from EPA’s Children’s Total Exposure to Persistent Pesticides and Other Persistent Organic Pollutants (CTEPP) Study, conducted in North Carolina and Ohio, and the First National Environmental Health Survey of Child Care Centers, a federal government study of a nationally-representative sample of child care facilities. Contaminants in schools are represented by one indicator calculated using a database on pesticide application in schools from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation. The special features present information on critical children’s environmental health issues that are not otherwise represented by the ACE indicators due to data limitations.

A separate draft document is available for each ACE3 special feature topic. Each document includes an introduction describing the importance of the topic to children’s environmental health. The document also includes a section describing how the indicators were calculated. Data for each indicator are presented in a graph. Beneath each figure are explanatory bullet points highlighting key findings. Following the indicator figures and bullet points, each document provides data tables, references, metadata, and details of how the indicators were calculated.

• Birth Defects (PDF)(18 pp, 494 K)
• Contaminants in School and Childcare Facilities (PDF)(29 pp, 619 K)