About CEHTP

The California Environmental Health Tracking Program (CEHTP) is a program within the California Department of Public Health and is funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Environmental Public Health Tracking Program. CEHTP is part of a larger initiative to establish Environmental Public Health Tracking systems at the national and state levels.  To learn more, scroll down or click on the links below.

• Background
• Program Goals
• Tracking Implementation Advisory Group
• Program Staff

Background

• Approximately 7 out of every 10 deaths in the United States are attributable to chronic diseases and the national cost of chronic diseases is over $325 billion. There is growing scientific evidence that environmental factors are strongly linked to many chronic diseases such as asthma, birth defects, and cancers.
• There is a gap in critical knowledge in understanding the prevalence and incidence of chronic diseases and potentially associated environmental factors. Nationwide and statewide health tracking systems, which integrates data systems and collaborative programs and partnerships involving environmental and public health professionals and organizations, will help target resources more efficiently to those areas most in need.
• Currently, California lacks critical knowledge about the possible links between environmental hazards (which are present in air, water, soil, dust, food, or other environmental media) and chronic diseases. Without information obtained by tracking health and links to environmental factors, California will continue to fight chronic disease with costly treatment, rather than cost-effective prevention. Statewide and community level incidence data on chronic diseases are needed to identify trends and patterns and improve disease prevention efforts.
• No comprehensive systems exist at the state or national level to track many of the exposures and health effects that may be related to environmental hazards. Because current systems are inadequate and/or not linked together, and some hazards and chronic diseases are not tracked at all, it is difficult to study and monitor relationships among hazards, exposures, and health effects. The Pew Environmental Health Commission calls this lack of critical knowledge, "the environmental health gap."
• Congress provided the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with funding to begin developing a nationwide environmental health tracking network and to develop environmental health tracking capacity within state and local health departments. To that end, CDC awarded California a three-year grant to support the planning of a Tracking system and a subsequent five-year grant to support the implementation of a Tracking system.  

Back to top

Program Goals

In August of 2006, CEHTP was awarded a five-year grant from the CDC to implement the statewide environmental public health Tracking system. Our vision is to establish a statewide network that will integrate environmental and health data to produce and make available information that will drive action to improve the health of communities.

To accomplish this, CEHTP has three core program goals:

• Advancement of technology infrastructure
• Improving the availability and utility of environmental public health data and information
• Informing policies, practices, and other public health actions

Key components to our past success have been the CEHTP Planning Consortium, Pilot Project Advisory Groups, and needs assessment activities that have provided essential input toward CEHTP’s vision, direction, methodologies, analysis, communication and outreach activities. We have also established partnerships with essential stakeholders in the public, private, and non-governmental sectors.  The Tracking Implementation Advisory Group (TIAG) was formed to provide guidance for CEHTP during the implementation phase.

Back to top

Tracking Implementation Advisory Group

Program Staff

View page in memory of Craig Wolff, CEHTP Geospatial Sciences Director.

Back to top