HealthMap PREDICT warns about diseases moving between wildlife and people

HealthMap PREDICT – A global early warning system to detect and reduce the impacts of emerging diseases that move between wildlife and people (zoonotic diseases).

From the about page

In order to predict, respond to, and prevent the emergence of novel infectious diseases in humans, pathogens must be identified at their source. Explosive human population growth and environmental changes have resulted in increased numbers of people living in close contact with animals. Unfortunately the resulting increase in contact, together with changes in land use, has altered the inherent ecological balance between pathogens and their human and animal hosts.

PREDICT, a project of USAID’s Emerging Pandemic Threats Program,is building a global early warning system to detect and reduce the impacts of emerging diseases that move between wildlife and people (zoonotic diseases). PREDICT has developed a SMART surveillance method (Strategic, Measurable, Adaptive, Responsive, and Targeted) that accounts for the fact that zoonotic pathogens, such as influenza and SARS, are responsible for the majority of emerging infectious diseases in people, and that more than three quarters of these emerging zoonoses are of wildlife origin. The SMART surveillance approach is designed to detect novel diseases with pandemic potential early, giving health professionals the best opportunity to prevent emergence and spread. It also targets sentinel animal species at active human interfaces in hotspot regions to improve surveillance efficiency.

The PREDICT team builds on a broad coalition of partners to develop the global capacity to monitor diseases at the animal-human interface and develop a risk-based approach to concentrate these efforts in surveillance, prevention, and response at the most critical points for disease emergence from wildlife.

PREDICT project objectives:

• Assess local surveillance capacity;
• Implement targeted and adaptive wildlife disease surveillance systems;
• Develop and deliver new technologies to improve efforts close to the source;
• Use cutting-edge information management and communication tools to bring the world closer to realizing an integrated, global approach to emerging zoonotic diseases.

A sampling of other health maps

• Health Map – Global Health, Local Information
• Flu.gov Influenza Activity Map (US)
• FluTracker
• USGS Disease Maps
• FAO Empress Maps
• WHO Global Health Atlas

Institute of Medicine Report: Better measurement can improve U.S. health outcomes

Institute of Medicine  Report: Better measurement can improve U.S. health outcomes

Excerpts from the press release:

Despite medical care expenditures that are the highest of any industrialized nation, deficiencies in the way health information is collected and a lack of agreement on the best indicators by which to measure progress are hindering efforts to improve Americans’ health, according to a new national report.

Released in December by the Institute of Medicine, the report calls on the nation’s health leaders to develop a core, standardized set of indicators to integrate and align health data and health outcome measurement at the national, state and local levels. According to the report, numerous health indicator sets developed in recent years and deployed in different contexts make assessment and comparison difficult for policy-makers and other decision-makers by highlighting similar information in different ways….

The report committee’s vision of the factors that create health in populations — community-based factors and social and environmental determinants — is “very different” from the way the current U.S. health care delivery system is structured, said Gold, noting that the report calls on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to produce an annual report informing policy-makers, health leaders and the public about important trends and disparities in the social and environmental determinants that affect health.

“The public health community…shares a commonality of interests and insight as to what the true determinants of health are, and what this report tries to put into sharp relief is that we need to do a better job of measuring the variables that create and detract from health in this country, and that we need to move that measurement strategy away from traditional biomedical variables,” said Gold, who is a professor and chair of community health and social medicine at the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education at the City College of New York.

The report, “For the Public’s Health: The Role of Measurement in Action and Accountability,” also recommends that the United States adopt a single, summary measure of population health. Death rates have long been used as the standard measure of population health, the report said, but life expectancy by itself cannot capture information about the health-related quality of life associated with chronic illnesses and injuries. Summary measures of population health, such as health-adjusted life expectancy, capture an overall picture of the well-being of communities.

Moreover, the report recommends that HHS assign the National Center for Health Statistics a leadership role in a “renewed population-health information system” through better coordination and integration of the determinants of health. The report further recommends that the National Prevention, Health Promotion and Public Health Council — the federal body created as part of last year’s health reform law — update Congress annually on NCHS’ progress in assuming such a leadership role.

To ensure the public’s awareness of the quality, safety, efficiency and appropriateness of clinical care services delivered in their communities, the report calls on state and local public health agencies in each state to collaborate with clinical care delivery systems. Local performance reports about overuse, underuse and misuse should be made available for selected interventions, the report said, including preventive and diagnostic tests, procedures and treatment.

The report also recommends that HHS work with relevant federal, state and local public-sector and private-sector partners and stakeholders to develop a performance-measurement system that promotes accountability among governmental and private-sector organizations that have responsibilities for protecting and improving population health at local, state and national levels.

Authoring committee member Martin J. Sepulveda, MD, FACP, called the report a “wake-up call” to the health care delivery system, policy-makers, governmental public health leaders, employers and other payers.

“It tells policy-makers that you can control the ‘mix’ part of total cost by focusing on the medical care delivery system — namely the proportions of controlled versus complicated people with chronic diseases, but the avalanche of new people with chronic diseases will continue to flood the system and will keep total cost high,” Sepulveda, IBM fellow and vice president for integrated health services at IBM Corp. in Somers, N.Y., told The Nation’s Health.

The report also tells governmental public health that it needs to “think differently” about its role in the health crisis and forge new relationships with the health care delivery system to break down barriers and create and use shared pools of data to inform policy-makers and consumers about critical performance matters such as overuse, underuse and misuse of medical care, Sepulveda said.

“It needs to play a key role in helping people know where health care value lies and who is and isn’t delivering it in their communities,” Sepulveda said.

Sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the report is the first of three on public health strategies to improve health. Reports examining public health and the law and public health and financing are due to be released within the next year.

For more information or to read the report, visit www.iom.edu/reports.

 

High Blood Pressure and Cholesterol (CDC Vital Signs Feature Issue)

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Vital Signs offers recent data and calls to action for important public health issues.

CDC launched a new program called CDC Vital Signs, which includes an MMWR Early Release, a fact sheet and website, a media release, and a series of announcements via social media tools.

Vital Signs will be released the first Tuesday of every month. Issues include colorectal and breast cancer screening, obesity, alcohol and tobacco use, access to health care, HIV testing, seat belt use, cardiovascular disease, teen pregnancy and infant mortality, healthcare-associated infections, asthma, and foodborne disease.

The feature issue High Blood Pressure and Cholesterol includes and overview, latest findings, outline of what can be done, and links to related social media (as Facebook and Twitter)

Related news items

• CDC Reports Sharp Increase in Strokes Among Those Under 35 Years of Age
  
• U.S. health system not helping heart disease: CDC

The EPA Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Program 2009 Data is Now Available

The EPA Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Program 2009 Data is Now Available

 

Image via WikipediaFrom the National Library of Medicine listerv item:

 

 

The National Library of Medicine TOXMAP (http://toxmap.nlm.nih.gov) and TOXNET TRI (http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?TRI) now include the 2009 Toxics Release Inventory data (TRI), the most current Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data available.  http://www.epa.gov/tri/tridata/current_data/index.html

20,446 facilities reported to the EPA TRI program in 2009, with 77,610 submissions.

A complete list of TRI chemicals required to be reported to the EPA can be found at http://www.epa.gov/tri/trichemicals/index.htm.

TOXMAP maps the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) chemicals reported to the EPA, as required by the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA).    http://www.epa.gov/oecaagct/lcra.html

TOXMAP covers on-site TRI releases only and also includes EPA Superfund data. http://www.epa.gov/superfund/

TRI contains information on the annual estimated releases of toxic chemicals to the environment and is based on data collected by the EPA. Mandated by the Pollution Prevention Act, TOXNET TRI data covers air, water, land, and underground injection releases, as well as transfers to waste sites, and waste treatment methods and efficiency, as reported by certain industrial facilities around the United States. TRI also includes data related to source reduction and recycling.

Visiting the Toxics Release Inventory Web site for the first time?

Try these Web pages first. Also, contact a reference librarian for assistance. Librarians at public libraries are helpful. Also consider academic libraries. Call ahead to see what services they provide to the general public. You will probably be pleasantly surprised!

• TRI FAQ’s
• EPA Learn the Issues (including Air , Wastes and Pollution, and Human Health)
• TRI Explorer “is recommended for beginner to advanced users of TRI data. This on-line tool generates reports based on facilities, chemicals, geographic areas, or industry type (NAICS code) at the county, state, and national level. It provides information for on- and off-site disposal or other releases, transfers off-site, and other waste management data.”
• Envirofacts “is recommended for beginner to advanced users of a wide variety of EPA datasets including TRI. EPA created the Envirofacts Warehouse to provide the public with direct access to information contained in its databases on Air, Chemicals, Facility Information, Grants/Funding, Hazardous Waste, Risk Management Plans, Superfund, Toxic Releases.”
• TRI Tools includes the above two links and more
• TRI Resources for data users