The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #70350

Thomas A. Burke, PhD, MPH¹, Jessica Leighton, PhD², Jim Cone, MD, MPH³, and Caroline Bragdon, MPH². (1) Health Policy and Management/Risk Sciences and Public Policy Institute, Johns Hopkins University, 624 N. Broadway, Room 484, Baltimore, MD 21205, 410-614-4587, tburke@jhsph.edu, (2) Bureau of Environmental Disease Prevention, New York City Department of Health, 253 Broadway 12th Floor, Box CN58, New York, NY 10007, (3) Environmental and Occupational Disease Epidemiology, Dept of Health and Mental Hygiene New York City, 253 Broadway, Room 602, CN 34-C, New York, NY 10007

Over the past thirty years we have addressed many environmental health problems ranging from water pollution control to hazardous waste management. As regulatory requirement burgeoned, the public health capacity to identify, track, and respond to environmental hazards eroded. This presentation will examine the historical and evolving relationship between public health and environmental protection, and describe the critical role of environmental public health tracking (EPHT) in bridging the common goals of these disparate worlds.

Since September 2001 there is an unprecedented awareness of the need for a strong public health capacity and investments in public health infrastructure. At the same time, there is growing opposition to regulatory approaches that are the foundation of the nation's environmental policies. EPHT builds on these realities by offering new approaches to evaluating hazards, strengthening the scientific basis for policy, and preventing disease.

This session will explore public health practice - academic partnerships to create the EPHT framework for identifying and monitoring sources of harmful pollutants, measuring population exposures, and assessing key health indicators in the population. New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) and Johns Hopkins Center for Excellence in EPHT will highlight their collaborate efforts to define relevant EPHT indicators for future tracking and inventory health outcome and environmental data tracking systems. DOHMH will highlight their efforts to convene a planning consortium and conduct assessments of community concerns and staff training needs. Johns Hopkins will present research findings on key environment and health measures.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify key challenges and processes for academic institutions and state and local public health agencies to work to develop a national environmental public health tracking network in this country.
• Understand the roles and contributions of local public health agencies and academic institutions in developing an EPHT network and improving environmental public health capacity.
• Describe how academic institutions and state and local partners can collaborate to define relevant EPHT indicators and inventory health outcome and environmental data tracking systems.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I have a significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Relationship: Johns Hopkins is a grantee of the Centers for Disease control to work on Environmental Public Health Tracking