Environmental public health tracking: driving environmental health information
Alex E Charleston1, Holly R Wilson, Peter O Edwards
1National Center for Environmental Health (Mr Charleston); and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia (Mss Wilson and David and Messrs Edwards and Dewitt).
Context:
Historically, public health professionals lacked the capacity to evaluate and conduct key investigations into the health of their environment. By bringing together environmental and health effects data from a variety of data sources, the National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network (Tracking) allows users to easily analyze and research the relationships between human health and the environment.
Objective:
As the Tracking Network has matured, its information has been used to guide public health actions, generate hypothesis, and demonstrate relationships between environment and health outcomes.
Participants:
The Tracking Network is composed of state, local, and national environment and public health partners.
Settings:
The Environmental Public Health Tracking Network is part of the National Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Design:
Tracking standardizes existing data from diverse sources while leveraging technologies and applying sound communication practices to provide a user-friendly interface for the data system by all types of users.
Related Concept Videos
Dimensions of Health and Illness
Principles of Disease Surveillance
Transmission-based Precautions II: Airborne and Protective Environment
Airborne precautions:
Use airborne precautions when treating patients known or suspected to have diseases that spread through the air—for example, tuberculosis or measles. These organisms are present in smaller droplets expelled by an infected person and...
Introduction to Epidemiology
Investigation of Disease Outbreaks
Models of Health Promotion and Illness Prevention II
The agent-host-environment model states that disease results...


