Infrastructure Enhancement and Data Linkage
Demonstration Project
| Grantee: | California Department of Health Services |
|---|---|
| Contact: | Paul B. English, PhD, MPH |
| Telephone: | 510-622-4508 |
| E-mail: | PEnglish@dhs.ca.gov |
| Address: | Environmental Health Investigations Branch California Department of Health Services 1515 Clay St., Suite 1700 Oakland, CA 94612 |
| Web site: |
http://www.ehib.org/cma/project.jsp ?project_key=EHSS01 [external link] |
| Funded Since: | September 30, 2002 |
| Funded Program: | National Environmental Public Health Tracking Program, Part B |
Program Description:
The California Environmental Public Health Tracking Network (EPHTN) Program has six objectives. These are to:
- Involve stakeholders by convening a planning consortium (comprising technical experts from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, California Department of Health Services, California Environmental Protection Agency, University of California, local public health and environmental officials, community-based and non-governmental organizations, and environmental advocacy groups) that will facilitate effective planning, implementation, and evaluation of the proposed program
- To identify and prioritize state and local needs for development of an EPHTN by assessing needs using survey questionnaires and phone interviews; assessing the feasibility of using Environmental Public Health Indicators and other indicators for surveillance; and identifying and prioritizing organizational, hardware, software, and informational needs
- Enhance EPHTN capacity by assessing needs of current state and local EPHTN capacity, resources, skills, and assets, collaborating with the Centers of Excellence in developing, implementing, and evaluating training programs
- Develop plans for a standards-based EPHTN, including testing protocols for data transfer and modeling; data refinement, augmentation, and linkage; security; dissemination and accessibility tools; and integration with other systems
- Develop an outreach and education strategy for communicating information generated by EPHTN by assessing needs of stakeholders to determine the most effective forms and content for receiving EPHTN information and their current capacity to educate the public; developing, field testing, and evaluating communication strategies
- Conduct a pilot project that will track asthma prevalence and adverse pregnancy outcomes and link these data to environmental hazard data on traffic exhaust exposure.
Data Linkage Demonstration Project
| Grantee: | California Department of Health Services |
|---|---|
| Contact: | Eric M. Roberts, MD, MPH |
| Telephone: | 510-622-4534 |
| Address: | California Department of Health Services Environmental Health
Investigations Branch P.O. Box 942732 Sacramento, CA 94234-7320 |
| Funded Since: | September 15, 2003 |
| Funded Program: | Environmental and Health Effect Tracking; Program Announcement #3074 |
Program Description:
This linkage demonstration project, "Tracking Perinatal Exposures to Airborne Toxics, Blood Lead Levels, and Health Outcomes of Pregnancy and Early Childhood,” is based in the Environmental Health Investigations Branch (EHIB) of the California Department of Health Services (CDHS) and involves several state agencies and the University of California at Berkeley. The project will be coordinated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to ensure compatibility with the developing National Environmental Public Health Tracking (EPHT) Network.
The overall purpose of this project is to demonstrate and evaluate methods for linking data from ongoing, existing health effects surveillance systems in California with data from existing human exposure and environmental hazards surveillance/monitoring systems. Methods, tools, and best practices developed through the project will be used in advancing the development of an EPHT network at the state, local, and national levels.
The specific goals of this project are to:
- Demonstrate linkage capacities to assess environmental health concerns
- Solidify partnerships for interagency and interdepartmental cooperation
- Involve experts and stakeholders in planning, evaluating, and disseminating findings
- Expand the technical and collaborative capacity of the California Environmental Health Tracking Program.
The project will use and enhance existing surveillance and monitoring systems to link exposures to lead and airborne toxicants (specifically, pesticides, industrial pollutants, and mobile source pollution) with adverse health outcomes of pregnancy and early childhood such as preterm birth, low birth weight, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), autism spectrum disorders, and mental retardation. The project will link health effect surveillance data that have not been previously utilized in tracking systems.
Birth records from California’s Center for Vital Statistics will serve as the central link, enabling the program to count nonduplicate cases, geographically link birth records with environmental datasets, and create individual-level linkage with health and social service datasets. The project will use the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Hazardous Air Pollutant database, the California Pesticide Use Reports system, and the California Air Resources Board’s Community Health Air Pollution Information Systems (CHAPIS). Biomonitoring and clinical data will be available through RASSCLE, the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch surveillance system. Clinical information about birth outcomes, infant mortality (particularly SIDS), autism spectrum disorders, and mental retardation will be available through the several sources including the Vital Statistics Birth Cohort files and records from the California Department of Developmental Services and the California Department of Education.
Partners include the California Environmental Health Tracking Program, the California EPA’s Air Resources Board, the CDHS Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch, the California Center for Autism and Developmental Disorders Research and Epidemiology, and the University of California at Berkeley’s Center for Environmental Public Health Tracking.
In addition, the University of California, Berkeley is funded as a
Center of Excellence in Environmental Public Health Tracking. A
description of the Center's activities is available at
http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/tracking/projects/contacts/
berkeley.htm.
