SB189 Update

California Senate Bill 189 (Escutia) was signed by Governor Davis on September 16, 2003 and chaptered on September 17th.

Overview of SB189

SB189 enacts the California Health Tracking Act of 2003 which requires the California Department of Health Services, California Environmental Protection Agency, and the University of California to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to assess the feasibility of integrating existing environmental hazard, exposure and health outcome data and describing how the data correspond to specified recommendations of the SB702 Expert Working Group on Environmental Health Tracking on or before July 1, 2004.

The bill also authorizes the California Environmental Health Tracking Program to collect any relevant information from state agencies, boards, departments, and offices for the purpose of making the most efficient use of existing information in order to reduce environmental health threats and designing a system for integrating data to create an environmental health tracking system.

Key findings from the Legislature in SB189

Approximately 7 out of every 10 deaths in the United States are attributable to chronic diseases.  The national cost of chronic diseases is $325 billion in annual health care and lost productivity costs, and this problem needs to be appropriately addressed.

California follows this trend with an estimated $75 billion to $90 billion spent annually for health care to treat people with these chronic diseases.

The rates of many chronic diseases, including asthma, some birth defects, and cancers, are on the rise.

There is growing scientific evidence that environmental factors are strongly linked to the incidence of certain chronic diseases, and are even more strongly linked to these diseases than is genetic predisposition.

A gap in critical knowledge exists in understanding the prevalence and incidence of chronic diseases and the environmental factors that may relate to them.

A statewide health tracking network, that integrates data systems and collaborative programs and partnerships involving environmental and public health professionals and agencies will help target resources more efficiently to those areas most in need.

Currently, the state lacks critical knowledge about the possible links between chronic diseases and chemicals that are present in air, water, soil, dust, food, or other environmental media.  Without information obtained by tracking health and its links to environmental factors, California will continue to fight chronic disease with costly treatment, rather than with cost-effective prevention.