Environmental public health tracking: driving environmental health information.

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.