In January 2001 the Pew Environmental Health Commission called for the creation of a coordinated public health system to prevent disease in the United States by tracking and combating environmental health threats. In response, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention initiated the Environmental Public Health Tracking (EPHT) Program to integrate three distinct components of hazard monitoring and exposure and health effects surveillance into a cohesive tracking network. Uniform and acceptable data standards, easily understood case definitions, and improved communication between health and environmental agencies are just a few of the challenges that must be addressed for this network to be effective. The nascent EPHT program is attempting to respond to these challenges by drawing on a wide range of expertise from federal agencies, state health and environmental agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and the program's academic Centers of Excellence. In this mini-monograph, we present innovative strategies and methods that are being applied to the broad scope of important and complex environmental public health problems by developing EPHT programs. The data resulting from this program can be used to identify areas and populations most likely to be affected by environmental contamination and to provide important information on the health and environmental status of communities. EPHT will develop valuable data on possible associations between the environment and the risk of noninfectious health effects. These data can be used to reduce the burden of adverse health effects on the American public.
Key words: environmental monitoring, environmental public health surveillance, information system integration, tracking.
Environ Health Perspect 112:1409-1413 (2004). [Online 3 August 2004 ]
This article is part of the mini-monograph "National Environmental Public Health Tracking," which is sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Address correspondence to M.A. McGeehin, CDC, 1600 Clifton Rd., NE, MS F52, Atlanta, GA 30333. Telephone: (770) 488-3400. Fax: (770) 488-3460. E-mail: mmcgeehin@cdc.gov.
We acknowledge CDC's Environmental Health Tracking Branch staff and the Environmental Public Health Tracking cooperative agreement partners for their contributions to the conceptualization and development of the National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network.
Contributions are acknowledged to the development of this mini-monograph from the members of the National Environmental Public Health Tracking Program 2003 Publication Committee: A.S. Niskar (Guest Editor for mini-monograph), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; T.A. Burke, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; J.I. Joyner, City of Houston Department of Health and Human Services; J. Leighton, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene; G. Lomax, California Environmental Public Health Tracking Program; T.E. McKone, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley; A.E. Smith, Maine Department of Human Services; L.E. White, DABT, Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.
This article was supported by an environmental public health tracking cooperative agreement from CDC. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of CDC.
The authors declare they have no competing financial interests.
Received 1 April 2004; accepted 3 August 2004.
