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Driving Oregon: Environmental Public Health Tracking's use of driver's license data for population-based BMI assessment in its dynamic web portal
Oregon Environmental Public Health Tracking (Oregon Tracking) is a nationwide initiative that involves the ongoing integration, analysis, interpretation and dissemination of data on environmental hazards, human exposures and health effects. Oregon is one of twenty-four grantees funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help develop the National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network supporting the continued efforts to examine how environmental exposures and health outcomes are connected.
Oregon Tracking made new indicator-based data (including Body Mass Index or BMI) available on their recently enhanced online data portal, providing an interactive search of environmental and public health information through maps, tables, and graphs. Oregon is the first state to incorporate DMV data into the public health tracking system and has put forth the largest validation study conducted on DMV records to date.
Public health agencies need reliable local data to guide prevention efforts. State-issued driver licenses and ID cards (DMV data) records can be used to track the population’s weight status at a sub-county level, providing great detail on patterns and disparities. This presentation will cover the Oregon Tracking Program’s work to validate data from DMV records, and will demonstrate several applications to inform research, describe disparities and trends in obesity, and guide public health interventions. DMV data is also useful for evaluating interventions, because we can look at records issued in different years and compare the change over time in the population’s weight status between different areas of the state. Other states should explore using DMV data for obesity surveillance.
Learning Areas:
Chronic disease management and preventionCommunication and informatics
Conduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice
Epidemiology
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Public health or related research
Learning Objectives:
Describe the need for a localized source of integrated information about environmental hazards, human exposures and health effects.
Demonstrate DMV data as good quality, inexpensive, flexible, stable, sensitive and representative of the adult population in enhancing the ability of public health programs and advocates to describe disparities in obesity throughout the state of Oregon.
Identify potential uses for the information in the Environmental Public Health Tracking Network.
Keyword(s): Environmental Health, Surveillance
Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Mr Cude’s experience lies in environmental quality monitoring, information service project management and environmental public health program management. As Manager, he leads program and policy development for Environmental Public Health (EPH) in the Public Health Division. EPH brings together the scientific disciplines of EPH with communications skills to minimize exposures to environmental hazards and improve public health. He oversees the Healthy Homes & Schools, Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Communities, Healthy Waters & EPH Tracking Programs.
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.