California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment

The 2022 California Extreme Heat Action Plan provides a comprehensive, all-of-government approach to building resilience and adapting to extreme heat and heat waves. It is structured around four key tracks: public awareness and notification, strengthening community services and response, increasing the resilience of the built environment, and scaling nature-based solutions. The plan aims to prepare Californians, mitigate impacts, and protect communities by promoting a focused, strategic, and data-driven approach across state agencies and departments. An update to this plan, the 2026 Extreme Heat Action Plan, is currently being coordinated.

The meeting featured a joint presentation on the results and impacts of the Fresca Muharez study, which addresses air quality challenges, particularly wildfire smoke exposure, for agricultural workers in California's San Joaquin Valley who rely on swamp coolers. Key discussion points included the development of an affordable filtration intervention for homes with swamp coolers, the evaluation of air filtration effectiveness through the Fresca Muheres phase, and laboratory testing of various filter types to ensure media could withstand wet surfaces without significant airflow restriction (aiming for less than 20% reduction). The presentation also detailed findings from the pilot and full intervention phases regarding PM data, including comparisons between single intervention (portable air cleaners) and double intervention (portable air cleaners plus filtered swamp coolers), showing the double intervention as a more promising solution. Bio monitoring data, specifically concerning the levels of PHEs, VOCCs, and metals in urine samples, was also scheduled for discussion.

The meeting of the Proposition 65 Carcinogen Identification Committee discussed the key characteristics of carcinogens and their use in hazard identification. The committee also covered the analysis of tumor data from animal carcinogenicity studies. Updates on various Proposition 65 regulatory and other activities were presented.

The meeting included a discussion on the key characteristics and analysis of tumor data, with public comments addressing the use of key characteristics of carcinogens in regulatory decisions. Concerns were raised about the value and specificity of key characteristics, with some arguing for the adoption of the aop or MOA framework. The discussion also touched on the challenges of using talks cast data to predict cancer classifications and the importance of considering the context and limitations of different data sources.

The committee discussed the human evidence of carcinogenicity, strength of evidence in animals, and the mechanistic evidence related to Bisphenol A (BPA). The discussion included malignant lymphoma data, leukemia, and lung metastasis of the mouse mammary counselor model.