Academic/community partnership: Environmental public health tracking and climate change

Environmental Public Health Tracking is a national surveillance program led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to explore environmental exposures and associated health effects. EPHT is designed to provide public access to environmental health data and support research, programs and policies that will protect the public's health. This presentation discusses Phase II of an Environmental Public Health Tracking initiative led by the District of Columbia Department of Health, Center for Policy Planning and Evaluation (CPPE). A 12 member Technical Advisory Group representing public health, community organizations, and universities provided guidance in the development and implementation of the EPHT initiative. University students assisted in data collection and analysis for both Phases. Phase I pilot-tested data on 25 climate change and health indicators including green house gases, temperature changes, heat related deaths. Key climate change and health indicators for the demonstration project for Phase II of the study included data collected from 2007-2010: hospitalizations for asthma and for myocardial infarction, air quality (ozone and particulate matter), along with demographic characteristics (geocode/ward, age, race, gender). Preliminary analyses indicate that for each year studied, women are significantly more likely to be admitted to the hospital with asthma than are men, children 0-9 years of age were more likely to be hospitalized for asthma when compared to other age groups, and African Americans were significantly more likely to be hospitalized for both asthma and myocardial infarction. Trends over time indicate that hospitalizations for both asthma and cardiovascular disease has been steadily increasing since 2007. Final data analysis including correlations for air quality indicators and health outcomes by race, age, and gender will be completed later this month and will be reported at the presentation, along with discussion about the feasibility of using EPHT to explore climate change and public health effects.