State and local health and environmental agencies have shared a long-standing role in monitoring the human health hazards of environmental factors. These agencies have worked to mitigate the impact of environmental hazards on the public's health by managing waste and hazardous materials; monitoring lead, asbestos, radon, and other hazards; and ensuring food safety as well as water and air quality. A key component to these activities is an effective environmental health information system. Health and environmental health agencies must be able to collect, analyze, share, and react to information regarding the impact of environmental hazards on community health.

The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP) and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) have initiated a new project with the Public Health Foundation (PHF) to assist public health agencies in improving community health through enhanced environmental health surveillance. With input from state and local environmental health professionals and academia, the Federal Government can assist agencies responsible for protecting the public from environmental health hazards. This assistance would include determining what types and sources of environmental health information (including information about hazards, exposures and outcomes) are useful for protecting the public's health as well as in making this information available to public health agencies in useful formats.

The project is being coordinated through a newly-created Subcommittee on Data Needs of the Environmental Health Policy Committee. PHF will convene an intensive 3-day workshop of individuals with expertise in environmental health information, including representatives from academia and federal, state and local agencies. Participants have been identified by PHF with assistance from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, the National Association of County and City Health Officials, the Association of Schools of Public Health, the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, and the Environmental Council of the States. Workshop participants will be charged with identifying the types of information currently available; sources of information, including surveillance systems in place or planned; information gaps; and causes of information gaps.

To that end, the specific objectives of the workshop are to:

1. Identify environmental health information needs common to state and local public health agencies.
2. Identify the types of environmental health information currently available and the sources of that information, including current/planned surveillance systems.
3. Compare information needs to existing sources of information and identify gaps in environmental health information.
4. Identify barriers to obtaining environmental health information and the contributing causes of the barriers (i.e., deficiencies in human, fiscal, capital, technological, or organizational resources).
5. Identify opportunities for bridging state and local environmental health information gaps and removing the barriers.

In order to ensure the maximum output from the workshop process, PHF has asked participants to prepare in advance of the workshop notes about their own agency's environmental health information needs and surveillance systems. PHF developed a matrix for providing this information that is geared around the essential services of public health. Participants were asked to select high priority services/activities, and for each: (1) identify their related information needs; (2) identify databases and other information sources used to address the information needs; (3) evaluate their ability to access and utilize data from those sources; and (4) describe their unmet information needs.

To aid in planning for the workshop, PHF identified and consulted with a group of environmental health experts—including representatives from academia, environmental health agencies, the research community, and organizations such as: ODPHP, NCHS, CDC, CSTE, ASTHO, NACCHO, and ECOS—to assist in identifying relevant research, developing the appropriate research questions, and formulating an agenda for the workshop approach. The group’s input was solicited via two conference calls. The group also provided input on workshop participants, session topics, speakers/moderators, briefing materials, etc.

PHF will develop a final report or "action plan" that will be targeted toward the Environmental Health Policy Committee. The plan will include suggestions for three to four key policy directions, with associated action steps, for the committee to consider to address environmental health data needs of states and localities.