Tracking Environmental Health Hazards

Programs

Providing vital environmental health data

What's New

Environmental Public Health Tracking Project Announcement:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center for Environmental Health, Division of Environmental Hazards and Health Effects is collaborating with New York, Oregon, Florida and New York City health departments to evaluate the health impacts of ambient air pollutants. The Health Impact Assessment (HIA)- Air Pollutants project is a follow up on recommendations made from the 2008 US Environmental Protection Agency/CDC/Health Effects Institute workshop to discuss key methodology issues for further developing the Environmental Public Health Tracking Network in the area of air pollution and health effects.

Participants will use US EPA software, local air estimates, morbidity and mortality data to evaluate the health impacts of air pollution while developing the best methods for communicating and disseminating the results. Emory University is the Coordinating Center for the two-year project. For more information, please contact Dr. Greg Kearney, Environmental Health Tracking Branch at GKearney@cdc.gov, or Dr. Matt Strickland, Rollins School of Public Health at mjstric@sph.emory.edu.

About

In July 2009, the CDC launched the National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network (EPHT). The Network is a web-based system that will bring together data from several systems that look at environmental hazard monitoring, human exposure surveillance and health effects surveillance. Information from the Network will help local, state and federal agencies develop and evaluate actions that improve public health.
CDC's Tracking Widget

ASTHO has partered with CDC's Network since 2002 and played a crucial role in guiding the Network’s development. ASTHO has served as the voice of unfunded health departments by communicating messages, success stories, and benefits to public health officials and policymakers in unfunded states. ASTHO has been key in sponsoring meetings between state Tracking staff with local environmental and public health staff in their states. In addition, ASTHO staff has represented the tracking program at conferences around the country and were pivotal in developing a Data Stewards package to help local and state tracking participants talk to their data stewards for collaboration.

Webinars: Building Capacity of Unfunded States and Territories

ASTHO Regional Tracking Webinars:

In an effort to enhance the capacity of unfunded state and territorial health agencies to conduct tracking related activities, ASTHO in conjunction with CDC has launched a series of regional tracking webinars to establish a means of exploring the capacity of unfunded states/territories to conduct tracking activities.

Federally-funded tracking states from Eastern, Central, and Western regions give portal demonstrations and discuss the National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network (EPHT), open source systems used to pilot the network at the state level, and potential ways of integrating environmental and epidemiologic data from non-EPHT funded states into the National Tracking Network.

May 21, 2010 Eastern Region Tracking Webinar Presentations: NYC Tracking and Maryland Tracking Network (MTN) Portal Demonstrations.

May 27, 2010 Central Region Tracking Webinar. To access, please click here. *_{Please note that the webinar presentation starts 10 minutes into the recording.}

August 25, 2010 Western Region Tracking Webinar: The Utah Tracking Network Presentations: Lessons Learned, Data Requirements and Setup, IBIS Mapping and Risk Communication, and IBIS-PH Overview, Architecture, Components and Terms.

Publications and Other Resources

ASTHO Position Statement on Environmental Public Health Tracking (pdf)

ASTHO recognizes the development of the Environmental Public Health Tracking Network as an important public health initiative.

Keeping Track, Promoting Health (pdf)

This book highlights the successes and challenges of the first four years of the Tracking Program.

ASTHO EPHT Fellowship Program: 2009 Evaluation Summary Report (pdf)

According to the results of the survey, the EPHT Fellowship is viewed positively and helps unfunded states and territories build their capacity to conduct environmental health public tracking.

Louisiana: EPHT Fellowship Report (pdf)

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the feasibility and applications of a surveillance system which tracks blood mercury and fish-tissue mercury. Issues encountered in setting up a novel surveillance system to track and evaluate Louisiana’s residential blood mercury levels and fish-tissue mercury levels are presented here along with the results of a preliminary review of these data.