Planning and Capacity Building Activities
| Grantee: | New Mexico Department of Health |
|---|---|
| Contact: | Len H. Flowers, MS |
| Telephone: | 505-841-5893 |
| E-mail: | len.flowers@state.nm.us |
| Address: | New Mexico Department of Health Environmental Health Epidemiology 1190 St. Francis Drive Santa Fe, NM 87502-6110 |
| Web site: | http://www.health.state.nm.us/ [external link] |
| Funded Since: | September 30, 2002 |
| Funded Program: | National Environmental Public Health Tracking Program, Part A |
Program Description:
The State of New Mexico proposes to increase its environmental public health capacity by developing the components of a statewide environmental public health tracking system (EPHTS) that is (1) capable of linking health effects data with human exposure and environmental hazards data and (2) standards-based and capable of integration with data from other states and other national data sets. The components of the EPHTS are to be developed by enhancing, standardizing, and ultimately linking data sources from local, state, federal, and tribal government agencies and academic institutions. New Mexico’s goals, objectives, and activities, include:
- Conducting an inventory of current and potential datasets, and
evaluating existing data sets based on CDC guidelines for surveillance
evaluation
- Developing and maintaining partnerships with appropriate agencies
and community groups
- Building an infrastructure to support a statewide EPHTS by providing
the resources to build capacity and address the needs identified above,
as well as developing and implementing a plan to enhance, standardize,
link and integrate existing surveillance systems
- Developing a plan for using the enhanced linked environmental data to allow informed decision making on the national, state, and local levels by creating strategies for data dissemination, and addressing potential obstacles to such dissemination.
New Mexico will collaborate with several agencies that have committed their support. They include the New Mexico Environmental Department, Indian Health Service, City of Albuquerque Environmental Health Department, and Bernalillo County Environmental Health Department.
Data Linkage Demonstration Project
| Grantee: | New Mexico Department of Health |
|---|---|
| Contact: | Ronald E. Voorhees, MD, MPH |
| Telephone: | 505-476-3573 |
| E-mail: | ronv@doh.state.nm.us |
| Address: | Office of Epidemiology Public Health Division New Mexico Department of Health 1190 St. Francis Drive, Room N1350 P.O. Box 26110 Santa Fe, NM 87502-6110 |
| Funded Since: | September 15, 2003 |
| Funded Program: | Environmental and Health Effect Tracking; Program Announcement #3074 |
Program Description:
The New Mexico Environmental and Health Effects Tracking Project will demonstrate and evaluate methods for linking data from existing health effects surveillance systems with environmental data. The purpose of this project is to increase understanding of the relation between health and environmental exposures through enhanced surveillance and standardized data system integration. The New Mexico tracking 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 specific project goals are to:
- Implement projects that link existing health effect surveillance
data with environmental exposure data
- Establish an advisory group to provide substantive recommendations
on planning, implementing, and communicating information from this
project
- Analyze data and disseminate information about the project to promote the use of linked environmental health data to allow informed decision making.
The New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) will conduct two projects that will link existing health effects surveillance data with exposure data. The primary project will link data on arsenic in drinking water with cancer data from the New Mexico Tumor Registry. The objective is to demonstrate and evaluate methods for establishing a statewide environmental health surveillance system to monitor cancer incidence rates with respect to arsenic drinking water levels. The goal of the arsenic exposure assessment is to characterize populated geographic areas of New Mexico by arsenic drinking water concentrations. New Mexico is an ideal place to link these two databases because the arsenic concentrations in groundwater have been both elevated and steady over time and the population at risk has been relatively stable. Linked data subsequently will be analyzed to examine cancer incidence rates according to arsenic levels in drinking water across the state.
The second project will link air quality data with the Statewide Asthma Surveillance System and other respiratory diseases tracked by the Hospital Inpatient Discharge Database (HIDD). Air pollution results from multiple sources in New Mexico including forest fires, coal-fired power plants, mining, refinery emissions, unregulated burning along the Mexico border, and vehicle exhaust. The goal of the project is to demonstrate a general process for linking environmental monitoring data (particulate monitoring results – PM10 and PM2.5) and health surveillance data; evaluate the utility of linked data for timely assessment of changing environmental exposures and health outcomes; and recommend adjustments to existing systems of data collection and analysis that would improve their performance.
