# PFAS Exposure and Health Effects in El Paso County, Colorado

> **NIH ALLCDC U01** · UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO DENVER · 2022 · $1,000,000

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
The overall goal of this research is to quantify the cross-sectional associations between measured and
modeled perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in highly exposed adults and children and
selected health outcomes, including lipids, kidney function, liver function, thyroid hormones and sex hormones,
glucose and insulin parameters, markers of immune function, and neurobehavioral outcomes in children. We
will enroll 1,000 adults and 400 children from a community in El Paso County, Colorado who experienced high
levels of PFAS contamination of their municipal drinking water and private wells resulting from the use of
aqueous film-forming foams (AFFF) for firefighting activities at a nearly US Air Force Base. Exposure to PFAS
will be assessed via measured serum concentrations and through a detailed model to reconstruct historical
PFAS concentrations in groundwater and drinking water in El Paso County. Combining this information with
individual residential histories, we will be able to estimate cumulative lifetime exposure to AFFF-related PFAS
in El Paso County for each study participant. Our research team is well qualified to achieve this goal due to our
complementary expertise in exposure science (Adgate), environmental epidemiology (Starling), PFAS
chemistry and drinking water exposure (Higgins, Vestergren), groundwater modeling (Singha, McCray),
neurobehavioral testing (Wilkening), cancer epidemiology (Cockburn), statistical methods for the analysis of
observational data (Glueck), and community outreach and education (Richardson, Celico). We have conducted
a pilot study in El Paso County that demonstrates the feasibility of recruiting participants to complete study
procedures similar to those in the ATSDR protocol. The preliminary results of our pilot study show: (1) a unique
AFFF-related exposure profile with median concentrations of perfluorohexane sulfonate (PFHxS) more than
ten times the median of the general US population, and (2) prominent differences in AFFF-related PFAS
exposure by geographic area with an apparent north-south gradient in serum concentrations within El Paso
County. In addition to the common core protocol, we propose two investigator-initiated aims: (1) a highly
innovative examination of the association between PFAS and biomarkers linked to testicular and thyroid
cancer risk (both previously identified in human and animal studies as potentially related to PFAS exposure),
and (2) the application of novel statistical methods to estimate the combined effect of exposure to the complex
mixture of PFAS found in AFFF-contaminated drinking water, and to separate the effects of individual PFAS
from the correlated mixture. This research fills an important knowledge gap because populations in numerous
US states have been exposed to AFFF-derived PFAS via contaminated drinking water. The completion of
these aims will provide essential information for communities, researchers, and policymakers seek...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10909770
- **Project number:** 6U01TS000300-05M001
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO DENVER
- **Principal Investigator:** JOHN L. ADGATE
- **Activity code:** U01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** ALLCDC
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $1,000,000
- **Award type:** 6
- **Project period:** 2019-09-30 → 2024-09-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10909770

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10909770, PFAS Exposure and Health Effects in El Paso County, Colorado (6U01TS000300-05M001). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10909770. Licensed CC0.

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