Case Studies

The CDC came to Battelle in 2008 for help in managing, implementing and improving the National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network, an online portal for environmental and public health data reporting, collection and dissemination.

The 2014 Ebola epidemic prompted an urgent need for an approved vaccine to treat or prevent the disease in future outbreaks. Based on Battelle’s extensive experience in vaccine testing and managing highly regulated, complex projects involving high-containment pathogens, we were chosen to evaluate the immunogenicity and efficacy of Ebola vaccine candidates to determine if they were protective.

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Response generated hundreds of thousands of environmental data points over the course of several years. BP asked Battelle to collect all of the data generated from the response into a single database system: the Health, Safety and Environment Data Management System (HSE-DMS).

Battelle conducted contextual research in a series of smaller hospitals to better understand the process of dispensing daily medication to patients. We observed hospital environments with different procedures and equipment in place, and created a report highlighting the operational differences.

Battelle is working alongside the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Office of International and Tribal Affairs to provide capacity building to Central American countries, including Ministries of Environment and Health, academic institutions, and the private and non-profit sectors to improve their management of air quality.

The frequency and intensity of extreme heat events have been increasing globally and are projected to continue increasing through the 21st century. Leveraging NASA funding, Battelle developed a methodology to analyze and visualize urban heat vulnerability in a way that could link science and policy, appropriate for supporting informed city-level policy and management decisions.

Battelle supported the SERVIR program, a joint effort by NASA and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), by creating science applications for international development through the use of Earth observations. Focusing on air quality and health, this project involved a series of specific tasks related to air quality monitoring, analysis, forecasting and visualization for Latin America.

The U.S. Air Force came to Battelle for help in developing coaching programs that would prepare base personnel to implement an effective industrial hygiene program using the Defense Occupational and Environmental Health Readiness Systems. See the results of our work.

A food manufacturer came to Battelle for help in proving statistical equivalence of their new food product formulation for regulatory purposes. The manufacturer was phasing out an ingredient due to consumer concern and the potential for future regulation. In order to reduce the likelihood that they would need to conduct expensive regulatory studies and resubmit the product for FDA approval, the manufacturer needed to be able to prove that the new product was substantially equivalent to the old product with the exception of the removed ingredient.

A police officer and his wife purchased French fries from a fast food restaurant. The officer recognized the person preparing the fries as someone he had arrested previously. The wife later noted that the French fries “smelled and tasted funny.” Battelle used sophisticated analytical and statistical methods to determine whether or not cleaning agents were present in French fries from a fast food restaurant

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act requires premarket approval of all new tobacco products commercially marketed after Feb. 15, 2007—unless they are shown to be “substantially equivalent” to an existing tobacco product. Battelle conducted internal research to validate analytical methods to be used for characterization of tobacco products for purposes of demonstrating Substantial Equivalence.

Little cigars have been rapidly growing in popularity, especially among younger smokers. However, their chemical composition has not been as well characterized as the composition of traditional cigarettes. Battelle researchers studied four popular little cigar products against four popular cigarette products in order to determine the new and distinctive exposures associated with little