Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #115524

Beth A. Resnick, MPH, Health Policy and Management, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, 624 N. Broadway, Room 484, Baltimore, MD 21205, 401-614-5454, bresnick@jhsph.edu and Mary A. Fox, PhD, MPH, Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 624 N. Broadway, Room 455, Baltimore, MD 21205.

The 2001 Pew Environmental Health Commission at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health recommended a nationwide environmental public health tracking network and increased state and local public health agency environmental public health capacity. Consequently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention received funding for an environmental public health tracking program. As a part of the CDC's program, the JHU Tracking Center has developed a multi-disciplinary team of faculty, students and staff. The team's activities are as follows:

Education and Training: Courses are developed and conducted in collaboration with tracking partners. Topics include: tracking primers, geographic information systems, time series and case crossover analysis, and data analysis and presentation.

Fellowships: • Doctoral students (6): to strengthen the environmental health workforce pipeline through training opportunities; • Faculty (4): to provide technical assistance for the tracking network; and conduct methodological research to expand the EPHT “toolbox”.

Tracking Applications: Assessments of tracking policies and legislation; state capacity to respond to non-communicable disease clusters; available national datasets for tracking; and trends and implications for key hazards, exposures, and health endpoints have been conducted. Building on these assessments, three environmental public health indicators were identified and piloted tested for their tracking utility.

Methods Development Research: The first national study of PM2.5 and health was conducted. Methods for estimating dose-response relationships in spatio-temporal data will be examined in a national case-study. An algorithm for evaluating apparent local excesses applying statistical methods within an epidemiologic framework will be tested for selected cancers in Maryland.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, we expect participants to be able to

• describe environmental public health tracking;
• learn about specfic activities of the Johns Hopkins Center for Excellence in Environmental Public Health Tracking; and
• identify environmental public health tracking applications to public health programs, research and policies.

Keywords: Environmental Health, Environmental Exposures

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.