Revelations from a meta database system on environmental health problems

Harmful effects of environmental pollution to the health status of population is well-known to ecologists and experts on health sciences. However, prevention and protection against such direct environmental hazards to save, or, in a worse case, re-establish the ecological balance are anything but successful. It is true, even if modern monitoring and measuring technology, adequate information systems, and related data bases are available. Precision of measurements and surveys, assessment and evaluation of the relationship between component elements of negative environmental effects on one the one hand, and general health conditions of the population on the other, could be increased by applying methods of informatics i.e., if we carry out a preliminary and professional analysis of the already existing information property. A useful tool for such activities could be the creation and maintenance of an integrated meta-type data base. It is a set sorted by a causal relations group of information that is collected from several databases of different origin, as pre-defined by the task. Our task was to systematize valuable information collected from different fields of science and research (competencies), to compare them with international standard databases, and thus, to discover new inter-relations, create new values. As an input, one could envisage a network of satellite data bases evaluating relevant results of scientists and research institutions. The main database itself could contain standard national and international information on environmental health care. The output of the system could be relational analysis produced by the meta-system on the basis of results provided by the satellite systems. Thus, frequently, even without carrying out a particular survey, one could already suspect that certain environmental health hazards exist, or plan and implement certain measurements and surveys in a more precisely targeted way. An unlimited number of local satellite workstation modules of experts and research institutions may be linked to the meta database. Information property created as a result of special analysis and annotation might create a knowledge basis for free access by participants. Thus not only would their scientific backgrounds be strengthened, but services would also be provided by the meta database which could be diversified continuously. The satellite systems, the sorting and retrieval functions of the database, and its graphical services would provide a loose but flexible micro-computer system that could be linked together by autonomous or networked workstations. Our system is written on FoxPro and uses FoxGraph. At a medium level of capacity, it requires 1 MB free RAM and 14-16 MB fixed memory. The system already shows a certain specialization: the 'PubHealth' system from general issues of environmental health care leans towards problems related to sub-toxic long term effects and correlations to health insurance risk assessment (cost-benefit, risk-benefit analysis). However, new issues are also emerging when experts wish foremost to utilize the philosophy of the system (e.g., epidemiological mental-hygienic surveys related to life style and social status).