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 Environmental causes of chronic diseases are hard to identify. Measuring amounts of hazardous substances in our environment in a standard way, tracing the spread of these over time and area, seeing how they show up in human tissues, and understanding how they may cause illness is critical. The National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network is the start of that system.
While there are many ways to define environmental health, for the purposes of this website, it means how the environment might affect a person's health and how people might affect the health of the environment.
The environment is our air, our water, our food, and our surroundings. Tracking describes how we collect data, interpret it, and report it. We are acquiring data about hazards in the environment, if a person was exposed to one of them, and health problems that may be related to these exposures.
Different types of data are used to learn how the environment affects people's health. The Tracking Network provides information about the following types of data:
 Environmental public health tracking is a type of surveillance. It is a way of incorporating data for analysis and reporting. CDC's National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network is a website that brings together data concerning some health and environmental problems. The goal of this network is to provide information to help improve where we live, work, and play.
The Tracking Network is part of CDC's National Environmental Public Health Tracking Program. The Tracking Program includes not only the Tracking Network but the people, resources, and program management involved in building this network. The Tracking Network is a discrete product of the Tracking Program. Learn more about the Tracking Program.
 CDC provides funds to 23 state and local health departments to develop local tracking networks. These networks feed into the National Tracking Network.
Learn more about Tracking by taking this Tracking 101 online training. CE credits available.
Here you can learn more about some of concepts that are the foundation of the Environmental Public Health Tracking Network:
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How were the data for the Tracking Network chosen?
Health and environmental experts from states, cities, and other agencies helped CDC develop the indicators and measures you will find on this site. These decisions were based on many factors including priority for state and local health departments, priority for CDC, and whether or not data were available for a particular topic.
- Join our Tracking Listserv to receive updates when we add something new. Send an e-mail to epht@cdc.gov to join.
- Let us hear from you! What information do you want to find on the Tracking Network? E-mail your ideas to epht@cdc.gov
How can we use environmental epidemiology to study disease patterns, trends and clusters?
We can measure some health problems by identifying the number of persons who have a particular disease or illness. We can also measure or estimate whether those persons have come in contact with an environmental hazard such as lead based paint in homes or arsenic in water. We can compare the number of persons who have a problem to their potential exposure to determine if there is a relationship. We can also study the same kinds of diseases or illnesses in people who have not come in contact with an environmental hazard to see if the numbers are different or the same.
Tracking is one of the tools used to monitor trends in environmental public health. The term describes how we collect data, interpret it, and report it.
In environmental public-health tracking, we examine trends of environmental hazards, exposures, health conditions, and groups of people. We do this for single and combined data sets. Surveillance information can be displayed in different ways such as maps, charts, or tables.
What can surveillance tell us?
Tracking is an important tool in environmental public health. It can be used to:
- Respond to questions from the public about environmental hazards, exposures or health conditions
- Identify patterns and trends that are not normal
- Develop or assess public health programs, rules, or policies
- Identify problems with data and work to improve them
- Explore connections among environmental hazards and health outcomes
- Produce ideas and plans for research
- Provide data for studies and investigations.
What can surveillance NOT tell us?
Tracking alone usually cannot specify whether something in the environment is causing a disease or health condition.
Scientists often use tracking information to determine trends and patterns and whether more research is needed. For example, a map that shows how often a disease occurs can be a starting point for more investigation. The kinds of questions tracking data can help us answer include:
- Are rates higher in a certain age or race/ethnicity group? Does the pattern vary by age or race/ethnicity group and by where people live or work?
- Are disease rates in cities different from rural areas? What about areas with higher or lower income or education?
- Do disease rates change over time? Do rates vary from year to year or because of the season?
- What do we know about issues that influence this disease from other research? How do these issues vary from area to area and over time?
The answers to some of these questions may help us understand why some areas have higher disease rates than others. Or, they may help determine where we need to do more work.
Environmental public health tracking uses different types of data to help examine information about the environment and human health. The Tracking Network contains data on some health effects, environmental hazards, exposures, and some other data.
Health Effects
Information is collected on an ongoing basis for surveillance of many health conditions. This information is compiled into tables, maps, and reports, and updated over time. Data are then displayed for a state as a whole, or by county or ZIP code. In some cases, links about how data are collected, presented, and checked for accuracy are included.
Not all data sets are developed for surveillance. Some are meant to be a record of births and deaths or to track hospital use. The way data are collected and presented might affect estimates and comparisons when they are used to estimate disease rates or track trends across the state.
Health data alone will provide only a little piece of information about how an illness may be related to environmental hazards or exposures. Most county and ZIP code maps and tables provide only a person's address. This information tells very little about how a person may have come in contact with environmental hazards. Many diseases, like cancer, take a long time to develop. So, exposures that occurred many years before would likely be more relative to the disease. Those exposures might not be related to a person's residence when they are diagnosed with a disease. This is one reason why connecting environmental problems and health problems can be difficult. To conduct environmental public-health tracking, health data must be compared with other information such as hazard data, exposure data, and other data.
Environmental Hazards
Environmental hazards are chemicals and toxins that can cause harm. An example of a hazard is lead paint in the home or particulate matter in outdoor air. The presence of a hazard does not necessarily mean that health problems will occur but it may cause a disease or other health problem.
Environmental hazard data are key pieces of the Tracking Network. Hazard data are collected by many agencies and include data from monitoring air, water, and soil. Environmental hazard data also include information from estimates, calculations, and facility reports. An example of hazard surveillance is air-pollution monitoring.
Exposure or Biomonitoring data
Exposure is contact with some contaminant or harmful substance. Exposure data can indicate the levels of chemicals, such as blood-lead level in a person. We collect data about chemicals by analyzing a person's blood or urine. Exposure data are also known as biomonitoring data. These data cannot tell you how a person was exposed to a contaminant. The level of contaminant in a person's blood or urine alone does not indicate that the contaminant caused their disease. Advances in testing methods allow minimal levels of contaminants in a person to be measured. More research is needed to determine which levels of contaminants are safe and which result in disease. Learn more about biomonitoring.
Other Data
Other data about the population enhance exploration of potential influences and risk factors for diseases or other health outcomes. For example, census data can provide information about a population's income, race, or occupation. These factors might play a role in the number of cases of a disease in a specific area. The Tracking Network includes 2000 census data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Is personal health information included in the Tracking data?
No. Data that could be used to identify an individual person is not shared with CDC for the Tracking Program. We follow all of the laws and policies that protect the privacy of health records and other personal information.
What are data privacy and confidentiality?
For the Tracking Program, data privacy means that health data will not be used for anything other than the specific public health reason it was shared.
Confidentiality means making sure that health information is only seen by people who are authorized to have access it.
How do data privacy laws affect tracking?
Laws that protect privacy are very important for the Tracking Program. State and federal laws that protect health data also help shape what information will be available on the Tracking Network. Protecting privacy and identities is very important. This balance not only provides enough information to make the data useful for public health but also protects private details about a person's health.
It is getting easier for health information to be shared by computers. This has many benefits for health care and public health and will help us do our jobs better. It is very important to treat this information with respect and protect it to ensure its privacy. Finding the right balance between sharing data that will help protect public health and being sensitive to a person's right to privacy can be difficult. However, many state and federal laws exist that help us work with our partners to make the Tracking Program useful.
A Picture of America: Our Health and the Environment
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is currently developing its first report about health and the environment: A Picture of America: Our Health and Environment. This report is an introduction to the nation's public health status from an environmental health perspective.
The report will describe what public health professionals know now about the effects the environment has on a person's health, and where there are still gaps in our knowledge about this. The report will also present an overview of health outcomes and environmental trends and how they are measured. Finally, the report will discuss how individuals and communities can improve prevention activities that reduce environmental exposures and protect human health.
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