Is your environment a health hazard? A new tracking system will reveal the impact of environmental pollution on your health - News and notes: latest research, interviews, product reviews, tips, & trends - Brief Article

PUBLIC HEALTH GROUPS HAVE LONG suspected that air pollution, chemical dumping, and pesticides contribute to increasing rates of chronic diseases like asthma and cancer. But they don't know how much. Finally, after three years of advocating, these groups convinced Congress to approve $30 million to create a nationwide system that will track environmental links to chronic diseases.

Many states already track people with chronic illnesses, but their data is incompatible and can't be analyzed for widespread patterns. And the few nationwide surveys that do exist don't evaluate enough people to be useful, explains Laura Rasar King, M.P.H., outreach director at Physicians for Social Responsibility in Washington, D.C., a nonprofit environmental health advocacy group helping to develop the new tracking network.

Under the new network, states will continue to gather data that conforms to national guidelines. And existing national surveys will be expanded and networked. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will house the raw data for researchers to use for analysis. Results from pilot studies may not be available for several years, but newly networked tracking systems should provide data much sooner.

Health professionals applauded the news, saying it could help us understand why certain people become sick and possibly reduce disease rates. They say the network is long overdue. "We know how many pounds of carcinogens are released [in different areas], but we don't know their impact on health," says Amy Goffe, a spokesperson for the Trust for America's Health, a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C., that advocated for the new network. "It's common sense to do health tracking [for chronic disease]."

COPYRIGHT 2002 Weider Publications
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group