142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

Annual Meeting Recordings are now available for purchase

298966
Environmental Public Health Tracking: Location-Based Community Profiles

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Tuesday, November 18, 2014 : 4:30 PM - 4:50 PM

Melissa Jordan, MS , Bureau of Epidemiology, Florida Department of Health, Tallahassee, FL
Chris DuClos, MS, GISP , Bureau of Epidemiology, Florida Department of Health, Tallahassee, FL
Rebecca Thomas, BS , Bureau of Epidemiology, Florida Department of Health, Tallahassee, FL
Background: The Environmental Public Health Tracking (Tracking) state and national portals provide important data on environmental health measures, but often focus on topic specific reports instead of place-based snapshots. Many of these measures are available at the county rather than the sub-county (community) level. In 2013, a national workgroup was formed by Tracking states and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop environmental health profiles at the sub-county level in order to inform communities about environmental hazards and health outcomes at the local level.

Methods: The workgroup collected feedback from state and local health officials, community-based organizations, hospitals, and other stakeholders to inform the development of community snapshot reports. The stakeholder assessment identified priorities for sub-county data sets. Participating states then used tools like Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to produce such data sets at the zip code or census tract level.  For example, Florida used GIS to calculate proximity measures such as the percentage of a zip code’s population that lives within ½ mile (walking distance) of a fast food restaurant.


Results: Eight Tracking grantees will release community environmental health profile reports in 2014. The profile format and content recommendations from the workgroup were intentionally kept flexible, and were permitted to vary depending on state/city health department capacity. For example, some profile reports will be available at the sub-county level (i.e., zip code, census tract), while other reports are limited to the county level.

 

Conclusions: The goal of this project was to combine environmental and related health measures into community-specific snapshots, building off existing Tracking infrastructure. This workgroup aimed to meet an identified need for sub-county environmental health measures. The resulting community profile reports will be used by local health departments and health councils, local governments, and other stakeholders statewide to assess environmental health factors in their communities.

Learning Areas:

Communication and informatics
Environmental health sciences
Epidemiology

Learning Objectives:
Design stakeholder assessments to determine local data needs. Describe the process for developing environmental health indicators at the county and sub-county levels

Keyword(s): Environmental Health, Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have worked in the CDC-funded Environmental Public Health Tracking Program for over 10 years, and have served as the Program Manager since September 2010. I have extensive experience in assembling and transforming spatial data with Geographic Information Systems for community health assessment activities. One of my primary scientific interests is the use of spatial and statistical tools to create community environmental health profiles, such as those available at http://www.floridatracking.com/HealthTrackFL/CommunityProfileReports.aspx .
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.