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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Ruth H. Allen, PhD MPH, Health Effects Division, US Environmental Protection Agency, 2039 Durand Drive, Reston, VA 20191-1340, 703-305-7191, ruth.allen@aehinstitute.com, Gauthami Gondy, MPH MD, Institute for Survey Research, Temple University, 4646 40th Street, Washington, DC 20016, and Margaret G. Conomos, MPH, Office of Environmental Information, US EPA, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20460.
Separate health and environmental data are collected, and the problem of data integration is largely left to community members, discipline specialists, and various advocate and stakeholder groups. Biases and data quality issues abound, environmental statistics issues are quite complex, and resources are limited for improving monitoring or modeling on an ongoing basis with new publicly available data. To improve public health practice, this paper reports on a case study comparing two counties each in several states. The health focus in on incident data for four cancers over several decades and publicly available health and environmental data. These data include: a geographical information analysis of selected Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) data relevant to schools, and National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data. The presentation highlights several points. First, it summarizes caveats to the interpretation of linked health and environmental data. Second, it includes basic information and focuses on high and low cancer incidence data from four or more county-level cancers incidence data sets. Third, it presents variation among multiple geographic locations in terms of environmental release data, data quality issues, and problems of data integration. Finally, it summarizes the significance of missing data, and what further steps are needed to foster prevention for communities and populations.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant (learner) in this session will be able to
Keywords: Cancer, Data/Surveillance
Related Web page: www.epa.gov
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.