Environmental data assessment for use in public health surveillance

Public health surveillance is the ongoing systematic collection, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of data on health-related events for use in public health action to reduce morbidity and mortality and to improve health. Total trihalomethanes are an example of a chemical in drinking water that is regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) but is not under public health surveillance. The U.S. EPA database that stores this environmental information is called the Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS). Its purpose is to collect data on noncompliance events in drinking-water utilities in each state. For this discussion, the SDWIS data on TTHMs, which are an example of environmental data, were assessed for public health surveillance system attributes as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: simplicity, flexibility, data quality, acceptability, sensitivity, predictive value positive, representativeness, timeliness, and stability.