Shared Vision

Report of the CDC/Working Group on a Shared Vision of Environmental Public Health at CDC/ATSDR (2001)

Foreword

Reports from The Future of Public Health, published by the Institute of Medicine in 1988, to the Pew Environmental Health Commission report, America’s Environmental Health Gap, published in 2000, point to the need to establish a strengthened national focus on environmental public health.

In August 2000, Dr. Jeffrey P. Koplan, Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Administrator, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), charged the National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH), CDC, and ATSDR with developing a plan that would describe the elements of a comprehensive environmental public health program and the strategies that could advance such a program at CDC and ATSDR. In response to this charge, we formed a Working Group comprised of senior scientists and managers from NCEH and ATSDR to develop a shared vision for environmental public health at NCEH and ATSDR.

The product of the Working Group, Report of the CDC/ATSDR Working Group on a Shared Vision for Environmental Public Health at CDC/ATSDR, is designed as a first step to build an enhanced national and international resource at NCEH and ATSDR for jointly addressing environmental public health threats and promoting health by improving the environment in which we live. The environmental public health objectives presented in Healthy People 2010, published by the Department of Health and Human Services; the Pew Report; and input from our external partners will help guide NCEH’s and ATSDR’s work.