Tracking health and the environment: a pilot test of environmental public health indicators.
Examining the relationship between health outcomes and environmental exposures requires summary measures, or indicators. To advance the use of indicators, the Johns Hopkins Center for Excellence in Environmental Public Health Tracking piloted three pairs of indicators: 1) air toxics and leukemia in New Jersey, 2) mercury emissions and fish advisories in the United States, and 3) urban sprawl and obesity in New Jersey. These analyses illustrate the feasibility of creating environmental hazard, exposure, and health outcome indicators, examining their temporal and geographic trends, and identifying their temporal and geographic relationships. They also show the importance of including appropriate caveats with the findings. The authors' investigations demonstrate how existing environmental health data can be used to create meaningful indicator measures to further the understanding of environment-related diseases and to help prioritize and guide interventions. Indicators are the foundation of environmental public health tracking, and increased use and development of them are necessary for the establishment of a nationwide tracking network capable of linking environmental exposures and health outcomes.
Dreyling
Erin
E
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Department of Health Policy and Management, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA. ekdreyling@yahoo.com
Dederick
Elizabeth J
EJ
Chari
Ramya
R
Resnick
Beth
B
Malecki
Kristen Chossek
KC
Burke
Thomas
T
Neff
Roni
R
D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000009:adverse effects*; D016902:Air Pollution, Indoor / Q000009:adverse effects*; D000818:Animals; D002947:Cities; D004781:Environmental Exposure / Q000517:prevention & control*; D005399:Fishes; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D008628:Mercury / Q000009:adverse effects; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011634:Public Health; D013997:Time Factors; D014481:United States
D000393:Air Pollutants; D008628:Mercury