Health and Safety

During the 1980s, the Energy Department's (DOE) involvement in producing nuclear weapons raised serious concerns about the credibility of the agency's research on the health of people working at or living near DOE facilities. In early 1990, DOE announced several initiatives to address these concerns, one of which was the development of a data base to store and retrieve information from DOE on the demographics, health, and exposure of its workers and the communities near its facilities. The data base was expected to be a valuable, comprehensive resource for those conducting long-term epidemiological and other health studies. In 1992, DOE began releasing the data used in its past research on health effects to outside researchers through a system called the Comprehensive Epidemiologic Data Resources. This report discusses (1) whether the current system functions as the comprehensive repository of epidemiological data about DOE's workers and the communities surrounding DOE facilities envisioned by the Secretarial Panel and the National Academy of Sciences and (2) whether it meets their intended objectives of accessibility and utility for outside researchers. GAO also discusses DOE's future plans for this system.

GAO found that: (1) the current DOE epidemiological database is not as comprehensive as originally envisioned because it lacks uniform data on laboratory workers' exposure to radiation and other hazardous substances and the health of these workers and residents near DOE facilities; (2) although DOE is trying to standardize its data and develop a more comprehensive employee health surveillance program, it will be at least three years before these goals are reached; (3) although the database is easily accessible, few independent researchers have used it because the data are of limited value for new research; (4) data problems include the lack of raw or updated data, missing and inconsistent data elements, and inadequate research documentation; (5) researchers often have to examine original records, which may be difficult to obtain, to get complete information; (6) DOE is uncertain whether the database will ever be as comprehensive as originally envisioned and it has not undertaken specific long-range plans to make it a comprehensive system; and (7) DOE has not assessed whether the current database or an alternative system would be the most cost-effective and practical means of providing researchers with needed data.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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