The Wisconsin Environmental Public Health Tracking (WI EPHT) program fills the need for ongoing surveillance and analysis of environmental hazards and disease data. This will help improve the public's health by improving the characterization of environmental health concerns and providing information to facilitate decision making. 

The Need 

• Data held by environmental and health agencies have not been collected in a way that they can be easily linked and analyzed together 

• The ability for public health agencies to respond to concerns about disease clusters has been limited by a lack of relevant geospatial data 

• Advances in sharing and securing public health data for communicable disease have not been transferred to the environmental health arena 

The Network 

• The program will produce a network for users to access and analyze the data. 

• Two websites are under development: one that is publicly-accessible and one that provides secured access for environmental and public health professionals, including local health departments.

• WI is one of 17 state and city health departments contributing to a national network.

The Response 

• The WI EPHT program has built partnerships with agencies and organizations that collect and use environmental and health data 

• Environmental and health outcome data are combined and examined to look for important relationships and trends. 

• Data are provided in web-based portals that seek to maximize data accessibility and maintain necessary system security. 

The Effect 

• The public can access data to help them learn about the environment and health in their communities. 

• Environmental public health staff can easily access integrated environmental health data. 

• Partner organizations can use these data to prioritize resources, complete needs assessments and develop community health improvement plans, and improve interventions. 

• Policy makers can use the information and data to guide their public health decisions.

There are many things in our environment that we continue to study for links to our health. New chemicals and products are being introduced and discovered in the environment daily. The WI EPHT program focuses on monitoring conditions in the air, land and water for which a strong public health link is known or suspected; therefore, program priorities may change over time.

Wisconsin's EPHT program is administered by a program located within the Department of Health Services, Division of Public Health, Bureau of Environmental and Occupational Health.  The program is funded by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  The WI EPHT program is led by a team of researchers, toxicologists, epidemiologists, information technologists and public health educators within the Division of Public Health.