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Jan. 8, 2003 Contact: Bonnie Widerburg (503) 731-4180 Technical contact: Michael Heumann (503) 731-4573 Oregon begins planning environmental health tracking system A new $1.5 million, three-year federal grant will allow Oregon to develop and test a plan for tracking environmental health threats, according to public health officials at the state Department of Human Services. "This will help us protect the public's health, because we can begin to link environmental exposures with the occurrence of certain diseases," says Mel Kohn, M.D., state epidemiologist. "These data exist in a variety of places, but in the past we haven't been able to bring them together in a manner that allows for comprehensive analysis." Kohn says that by 2006, Oregon will have developed and tested its plan for linking environmental hazard, exposure and health outcome data. Seventeen states and three cities received grant awards from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the ultimate goal is to create a nationwide system, according to Kohn. The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) will be a key partner because it collects data on air and water contaminants and other potential sources of exposure to environmental hazards, Kohn says."We want to plan a system that will link their data with health outcome databases. In the future, this will help focus research and other public health protection efforts." Other important sources of information include the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) and the Office of the State Fire Marshal, says Kohn. " For example, information from the ODA Pesticide Use Reporting program will provide data on pesticide use in Oregon. These data can be linked with our interagency program that tracks pesticide poisoning cases. This means we will be able to identify the products or practices associated with health effects from pesticide exposure. This information will help us target prevention and education efforts,"Kohn says. Grants were awarded to California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin. Also funded were the District of Columbia, City of Houston, New York City. Schools of public health funded to assist grantees include the University of California-Berkeley, Johns Hopkins University and Tulane University. Additional information about the grants is available on the Web at: www.cdc.gov/nceh/tracking/ |
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