183094 From Demonstration Projects to Documented Progress: Incorporating Hospitalization Data in Environmental Public Health Tracking

Tuesday, October 28, 2008: 9:00 AM

Mark Werner, PhD , Division of Public Health, Wisconsin Department of Health Services, Madison, WI
Rebecca Danhof, MPH , Division of Public Health, Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services, Madison, WI
Kristen Malecki, PhD , Division of Public Health, Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services, Madison, WI
Marni Bekkedal, PhD , Division of Public Health, Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services, Madison, WI
Henry Anderson, MD , Division of Public Health, Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services, Madison, WI
Data on inpatient hospitalizations and emergency department visits can be a valuable source of morbidity information for public health surveillance. Environmental public health tracking (EPHT) network developers have sought to incorporate hospitalization data because of their utility in evaluating the contribution of air pollutants such as ozone and particulate matter to adverse health outcomes such as asthma attacks and myocardial infarction (MI). Results of demonstration projects conducted in Wisconsin and elsewhere to explore how linking hospitalization and air quality data can advance public health surveillance led to the establishment of several hospitalization-based core measures among those upon which EPHT networks will be based. These include both summary measures (environmental public health indicators) and discrete data sets that provide nationally-consistent information about hospitalizations from EPHT grantees and other health agencies. In Wisconsin, outcomes from demonstration projects to (a) create an online report generation portal for accessing and analyzing asthma hospitalization data, and (b) conduct a multi-state analysis of hospitalization data for asthma and MI in tandem with air quality data were critical in evaluating approaches by which hospitalization data could be incorporated in EPHT networks. Ongoing challenges for state and national EPHT programs regarding hospitalization data include balancing desires for broadly-accessible platforms containing detailed data with confidentiality concerns, resolving spatial and temporal differences observed upon linkage with air quality data, and constructing clear and effective environmental public health messages based on hospitalization data from different jurisdictions.

Learning Objectives:
1. Articulate the rationale for the inclusion of hospitalization data in developing environmental public health tracking (EPHT) networks 2. Describe how demonstration projects using hospitalization data have contributed to EPHT network development efforts and objectives 3. List challenges to the incorporation of hospitalization data in EPHT networks and potential paths by which these challenges may be overcome.

Keywords: Environmental Health, Health Care Utilization

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been chiefly responsible for the work that provides the basis for the abstract
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.