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Tracey J. Woodruff, PhD, MPH, Office of Policy, Economics and Innovation, United States Environmental Protection Agency, 75 Hawthorne Street (SPE-1), San Francisco, CA 94105, (415)947-4277, woodruff.tracey@epa.gov, Amy D. Kyle, PhD MPH, Center of Excellence for Environmental Public Health Tracking, University of California Berkeley, School of Public Health, 322 Cortland Ave, PMB-226, San Francisco, CA 94110-5536, and Daniel A. Axelrad, Office of Policy, Economics and Innovation, US Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Mail Code 1809, Washington, DC 20460.
Tracking environmentally-mediated diseases is an important part of environmental health tracking, and can be used to track changes and identify opportunities for policies. Incorporating information by race/ethnicity and social and economic status (SES) in the different illness measures is an important component of environmental health tracking because there are often racial and economic disparities in health outcomes, and tracking information for these groups helps identify populations at risk. We will present how we have included race/ethnicity and SES information in tracking childhood illnesses that are relevant to environmental health, including: asthma and other respiratory diseases, cancers, and neurodevelopmental disorders, to illustrate issues related to incorporating race/ethnicity and SES in environmental health tracking. Data on childhood illnesses come mostly from survey data, which can constrain what information is available. For example, most survey include race/ethnicity information, , but often not information related to SES. We developed measures for childhood illnesses that included, wherever possible, breakdowns in incidence and prevalence for five race/ethnicity categories (White non-Hispanic, Black non-Hispanic, Hispanic, Asian or Pacific Islander, or American Indian/Alaska Native) and three family income categories as a measure of SES (below poverty, 100-200% of the poverty level greater than 200% of the poverty level). This talk will present the advantages and limitations of the various available data sources for measuring health status by race/ethnicity and SES and discuss how these were incorporated into measures of childhood illness. Views presented are of the authors and not necessarily of US EPA.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Environmental Health, Disease Data
Related Web page: www.epa.gov/envirohealth/children
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.