CDC launches tracking network for environmental conditions, public health

New tool aims to inform health professionals and public about potential links between environment and health, including asthma.

The CDC has announced a new web-based environmental and public health tracking system that aims to help scientists, health care providers and the public to monitor environmental and health information in one location.

The CDC said the Environmental Public Health Tracking Network will collect environmental information from across the country, coupled with information on certain chronic health conditions, and will make the information accessible to the public. The environmental data gathered will include information on water and air pollutants, and some of the information on chronic health conditions includes data on asthma, cancer, heart disease and childhood lead poisoning.

The CDC also hopes the network will help reduce the time normally taken to process data so that responses to public concerns about potential links between environmental exposure and public health can be addressed more quickly.

“The ability to examine many data sets together for the first time has already resulted in faster responses to environmental health issues,” Howard Frumkin, MD, PhD, director of the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health, said in a press release. “We believe the Tracking Network holds potential to shed new light on some of our biggest environmental health questions.”

The CDC has so far funded environmental tracking projects in 17 states. The projects have resulted in 73 health actions to control potential illnesses due to environmental exposure. The CDC also received additional funds in March 2009 to expand the network to five more locations, and additional awards are scheduled for decision later in the summer. The CDC’s goal is to expand the network to cover all 50 states.

This new CDC program tracks environmental data from multiple sources across the country and relates it to the local incidence of various health conditions, such as asthma, various kinds of cancer and MI rates. The CDC hopes both professionals and the lay public will find this information useful in recognizing environmental hazards and implementing programs to improve environmental public health.

– Samuel L. Wann, MD

Wisconsin Heart Hospital