Public health enviromatics: A new public health care delivery model for preventing environmental illness and disease

Jayfus Doswell, MS, PhD Candte, Information Technology, George Mason University, 6581 Hickman Terrace, Alexandria, VA 22315, 703-313-6774, Juxtopia@hotmail.com

Fulfilling America’s interest in assuring conditions in which people can be healthy through early illness and disease detection is a health care prevention intervention with several health care management and delivery challenges. Potentially more challenging is a model for detecting harmful environmental conditions that have adverse effects on human health. Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) is one such environmental illness that differs in symptoms and with no obvious pathology other than an association with the presence of common household industrial products or pollution. MCS symptom severity ranges from chronic, sometimes vague, sometimes plain, and sometimes dramatically life threatening. Additionally, MCS symptoms range from things one might normally associate with conventional flu or allergy -such as asthmatic, skin, and gastrointestinal reactions- to neurological effects both subtle and dramatic -such as cognitive difficulty, numbness, trembling, twitching and spasms, and partial to total paralysis.

With advances in information technology and life sciences, these challenges may now be overcome. This presentation will discuss a health informatics model for monitoring and detecting preventable environmental illnesses and diseases. Furthermore, the presentation will discuss how an informatics framework may be integrated into the daily practice of public health to increase health care efficacy and reduce health care costs. Furthermore, the presentation will encourage discussion on how this model may increase the quality of human life.

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of the presentation, the participant(s) in this session will be able to

Articulate how an informatics intervention model may integrate into daily health care practices.
Develop a real-time assessment strategy for immediately tracking incidents of environmental exposure that may lead to environmental illness and disease.
Evaluate an effective low cost method of safeguarding vulnerable populations communities, and the individual from preventable environmental illnesses and diseases.

Keywords: Environmental Health, Information Technology

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.

New Strategies in Information Technology

The 132nd Annual Meeting (November 6-10, 2004) of APHA