[A]
Acute – occurring over a short time, usually minutes to hours.
Acute Effect - an adverse effect on any living organism when severe symptoms develop rapidly. Symptoms often disappear or diminish after exposure stops. The term ‘acute’ may also refer to exposure and toxicity.
Acute Exposure – either one or a series of several short-term exposures (or doses) generally lasting less than 24 hours.
Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI) - heart attack.
Adverse Birth Outcome(s) - Examples of adverse birth outcomes include pre-term births, low birth weight, congenital abnormalities, miscarriage, or neurodevelopmental defects. Adverse birth outcomes may be the result of harmful environmental exposures to the mother and father, prior to and during the pregnancy, as well as from other sources.
Age-Adjusted Rates - a measure that controls for the effects of age differences on health event rates. When comparing across geographic areas, some method of age-adjusting is typically used to control for the influence that different population age distributions might have on health event rates. Age-adjustment may also be used to control for age effects when comparing across several years of data, as the age distribution of the population changes over time.
Age-Specific Rate - a crude rate limited to a particular age group. The numerator is the number of cases or events in that age group; the denominator is the total number of persons in that age group in the population of interest.
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) - a federal public health agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. For more information, visit the ATSDR web site.
Air Quality Index (AQI) - The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) designed the AQI for reporting daily air quality with regard to five major air pollutants: ground-level ozone, particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide. The AQI reports how clean or polluted the air is and whether air quality at a given time poses a risk to health. For additional information about the AQI, visit the AIRNow web site.
Air Quality System (AQS) - a database which contains ambient air pollution data collected by the U.S. EPA and by state, local, and tribal air pollution control agencies.
Air Toxic (also referred to as hazardous air pollutant or toxic air pollutant) - any air pollutant that is likely to cause serious or irreversible long-term health effects in humans. Air toxics may cause cancer, developmental effects, reproductive problems, neurological disorders, and genetic mutations. They include pollutants for which a national ambient air quality standard does not exist.
Ambient Air - any unconfined portion of the atmosphere: outdoor air.
Analyte – a substance measured in the laboratory. A chemical for which a sample (such as water, air, or blood) is tested in a laboratory.
Aquifers - underground geological formations, or groups of formations, that can store or transmit water. Aquifers are sources of groundwater for wells and springs. Common use of the term normally refers to water-bearing formations capable of yielding enough water to provide a usable supply.
Arithmetic Mean (or simply mean) – an average of all values within a dataset.
Arsenic - a naturally occurring element widely distributed in the earth's crust. In the environment, arsenic is combined with oxygen, chlorine, and sulfur to form inorganic arsenic compounds. Arsenic in animals and plants combines with carbon and hydrogen to form organic arsenic compounds. Inorganic arsenic compounds are mainly used to preserve wood. Organic arsenic compounds are used as pesticides, primarily on cotton plants.
Asthma - a serious, chronic lung disease that causes the airways (bronchial tubes) to become narrow and makes it hard to breathe. Asthma attacks are often caused by environmental triggers, such as molds, dust mites, and tobacco smoke.
Average Annual Count - an average (calculated as the mean), over a multi-year period, of the counts seen each year during that period.
Average Annual Rate – an average (calculated as the mean), over a multi-year period, of the rates or proportions seen each year during that period.
[B]
Background Level – a concentration (of chemicals) that is present in the environment either due to natural occurrence or from man-made sources.
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) - the largest, continuously conducted, telephone health survey in the world. It enables the Center for Disease Control (CDC), state health departments, and other health agencies to monitor modifiable risk factors for chronic diseases and other leading causes of death. For more information, visit the CDC’s BRFSS web site.
Birth Defects - an abnormal condition that occurs before or at the time of birth. Birth defects include a wide range of abnormalities with varying levels of impact. Examples of birth defects include spina bifida, cleft palate, upper and lower limb deformities.
[C]
Cancer - any one of a group of diseases that occur when cells in the body become abnormal and grow or multiply out of control.
Carbon Monoxide (CO) - a toxic gas that you cannot smell or see. CO is given off whenever fuel or other materials are burned. Breathing high levels of CO can cause severe illness or death in a matter of minutes.
Carbon Monoxide Poisoning - a disease that affects the amount of oxygen getting to the brain and vital organs. As CO gas is inhaled, it readily displaces oxygen in the blood, leading to headache, dizziness, nausea, and at high concentrations, people can become unconscious or die.
Carcinogens - substances, including radionuclides or radiation, that are directly involved in the initiation or promotion of cancer.
Cardiovascular Disease - refers to a group of diseases and conditions affecting the heart and blood vessels, with heart attack and stroke occurring most frequently. Congestive heart failure, hypertension (also known as high blood pressure), and disease of the arteries, veins, and circulatory system are the other diseases and conditions included in the term cardiovascular disease.
Cell Suppression - a statistical method used to report aggregate health data in tables that restricts or suppresses the release of aggregate health data in order to protect the identity and privacy of individuals and to avoid the risk of identification of individuals in small population groups. One type of cell suppression rule is to not release numbers or rates when the number of events (e.g., number of cancer cases among females in a community) is less than 6 and the population (e.g., number of females in the community) is less than 1,200. A cell suppression rule applies only to confidential health data and not data otherwise available to the public, such as air pollution data.
Census - a procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. A census of the U.S. population is taken every ten years in order to apportion the number of members of the United States House of Representatives among the several states. Census statistics are also used to apportion federal funding for many social and economic programs. For more information, visit the U.S. Census Bureau web site.
Census Block - the smallest geographic entity for which the U.S. Census Bureau tabulates decennial census data. Many blocks correspond to city blocks bounded by streets, but blocks in rural areas may include several square miles and have some boundaries that are not streets.
Census Block Group - a unit of U.S. census geography that is a combination of census blocks. A block group is the smallest unit for which the U.S. Census Bureau reports a full range of demographic statistics. There are about 700 residents per block group. A block group is a subdivision of a census tract.
Census Tract - a small, statistical subdivision of a county that usually includes approximately 4,000 inhabitants, but which may include from 2,500 to 8,000 inhabitants. A census tract is designed to encompass a population with relatively uniform economic status, living conditions, and some demographic characteristics. Tract boundaries normally follow physical features, but may also follow administrative boundaries or other non-physical features. A census tract is a combination of census block groups.
Center for Health Statistics (CHS) at the New Jersey Department of Health - The Center for Health Statistics (CHS) collects, researches, analyzes and disseminates New Jersey health data and information and serves as a resource to the Department in development of health data policy. For more information, visit the Department’s Center for Health Statistics web site.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – a federal public health agency, part of Department of Health & Human Services. For more information, visit the the CDC web site.
Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program (CLPPP) - The CLPPP was established for the prevention, screening, diagnosis, and treatment of lead poisoning, including the elimination of sources of poisoning through research and educational, epidemiologic, and clinical activities as may be necessary. CLPPP provides a range of both primary and secondary prevention services to the children of New Jersey, their families and others with an interest in the prevention of lead poisoning.
Chronic Effect - an adverse effect on an organism in which symptoms recur frequently or develop slowly over a long period of time. The term “chronic” can also apply to exposure and toxicity. The term is usually applied to a condition spanning several weeks, months or years.
Community Water System (CWS) – a public water system that serves year-round community residents (at least 25 people or at least 15 service connections).
Concentration - the relative amount of a substance mixed with another substance. Examples are "five parts per million (ppm) of carbon monoxide in air" or "1 milligram per liter (mg/L) of lead in water".
Confidence Interval (CI) - used to account for the difference between a sample from a population and the population itself. They can also be used to account for uncertainty that arises from natural variation. Confidence intervals provide a means of assessing and reporting the precision of a point estimate, such as a hospitalization rate. A CI is a range around a measurement conveying the amount of precision. In general, the wider the range, the less precise the number.
Contaminant – a substance that is either present in an environment where it does not belong or is present at levels that might cause adverse health effects.
Contamination - presence of contaminants in the air, water or soil.
Correlation – a relationship that results when a change in one variable is consistently associated with change in another variable.
Criteria Pollutants - EPA uses six "criteria pollutants" as indicators of air quality, and has established for each of them a maximum concentration above which adverse effects on human health may occur. These six pollutants are: Ozone, Nitrogen Dioxide, Sulfur Dioxide, Particulate Matter (less than 10 microns), Lead, and Carbon Monoxide.
Crude Rate - the number of events (such as deaths) in a specified time period divided by the number of people at risk of these events (typically, a state or county population) in that period. This figure is generally multiplied by a constant such as 1,000 or 100,000 to get a number that is easy to read and compare, and thus, the rate is reported as “per 1,000” or “per 100,000.” A rate per 100 is the same as a percent. Crude rates adjust for differences in population size but not differences in population characteristics, such as age.
Cumulative exposure - the sum of exposures of an organism to a chemical over a period of time.
[D]
Deciliter – one-tenth, , of a liter; (approximately 3 ounces).
Denominator - the lower portion of a fraction used to calculate a rate or ratio.
Detection limit - the lowest concentration of a chemical that can reliably be distinguished from a zero concentration.
Disease Rate – a measure of how frequently a disease occurs in a population.
Disinfection Byproducts (DBP) -Disinfection byproducts, or DBPs, result when disinfectants like chlorine combine with organic matter. Disinfectants are added to drinking water to kill or inactivate harmful organisms that cause various diseases. The most common DBPs formed when chlorine is used are trihalomethanes (THMs), and haloacetic acids (HAAs).
Dose - amount of a substance to which a person is exposed over some time period.