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Use of health information in air pollution health research: Past successes and emerging needs

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology volume 19, pages 45–58 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

In September 2006, the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) co-organized a symposium on “Air Pollution Exposure and Health.” The main objective of this symposium was to identify opportunities for improving the use of exposure and health information in future studies of air pollution health effects. This paper deals with the health information needs of such studies. We begin with a selected review of different types of health data and how they were used in previous epidemiologic studies of health effects of ambient particulate matter (PM). We then examine the current and emerging information needs of the environmental health community, dealing with PM and other air pollutants of health concern. We conclude that the past use of routinely collected health data proved to be essential for activities to protect public health, including the identification and evaluation of health hazards by air pollution research, setting standards for criteria pollutants, surveillance of health outcomes to identify incidence trends, and the more recent CDC environmental public health tracking program. Unfortunately, access to vital statistics records that have informed such pivotal research has recently been curtailed sharply, threatening the continuation of the type of research necessary to support future standard setting and research on emerging exposure and health problems (e.g. asthma, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and others), as well as our ability to evaluate the efficacy of regulatory and other prevention activities. A comprehensive devoted effort, perhaps new legislation, will be needed to address the standardization, centralization, and sharing of data sets, as well as to harmonize the interpretation of confidentiality and privacy protections across jurisdictions. These actions, combined with assuring researchers and public health practitioners appropriate access to data for evaluation of environmental risks, will be essential for the achievement of our environmental health protection goals.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the excellent contributions made by the symposium attendees who participated in the health break-out group discussions on the second day of the meeting.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, Tuxedo Park, New York, USA

    George D Thurston & Kazuhiko Ito

  2. Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services, Madison, Wisconsin, USA

    Marni Y V Bekkedal

  3. Public Health Institute, Oakland, California, USA

    Eric M Roberts

  4. Department of Economics, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA

    C Arden Pope III

  5. National Center for Environmental Research, Office of Research and Development, US Environmental Protection Agency, Washington DC, USA

    Barbara S Glenn

  6. National Exposure Research Laboratory, Office of Research and Development, US Environmental Protection Agency, RTP, North Carolina, USA

    Halûk Özkaynak

  7. Pulmonary Division, Department of Medicine and Environmental Medicine, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York, USA

    Mark J Utell

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The United States Environmental Protection Agency through its Office of Research and Development partially funded and collaborated in the research described here under contract numbers: EP06D000757 to Dr. George Thurston; EP06D000748 to Dr. Arden Pope, and; EP06D000741 to Dr. Mark Utell. This paper has been subjected to Agency Review and approved for publication.

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Thurston, G., Bekkedal, M., Roberts, E. et al. Use of health information in air pollution health research: Past successes and emerging needs. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 19, 45–58 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/jes.2008.41

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/jes.2008.41

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