Policies to Expand the Use of Health Tracking and Biomonitoring

National Health Tracking

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that a majority of deaths from chronic diseases such as asthma, cancer, diabetes, Parkinson’s, and  Alzheimer’s Disease could be prevented. However, the country does not have the fundamental scientific system needed to identif  and understand the factors that are causing or contributing to preventable deaths - a nationwide health tracking network (NHTN).

A nationwide health tracking network involves health scientists connecting rates of disease with a range of studies, including environmental (viral agents, pollution, etc.), occupational, and lifestyle or behavioral (diet, etc.). In addition, a NHTN yields information about the varying rates of disease by geography and ethnicity, providing answers about whether or not there are “clusters” of diseases occurring in particular communities or population groups.

Once disease causes are known, public health experts, health care providers, and policymakers can develop informed strategies to reduce and eliminate disease and lower the cost of medical treatment.

The Trust for America’s Health is working in partnership with many other national and local groups to fund the creation of a national health tracking system.

For more information, go to www.tfah.org.

Biomonitoring in California

Biomonitoring is one part of health tracking. Biomonitoring tests blood, urine, or breast milk for the toxic chemicals each of us carries as a result of our exposure to environmental toxicants (known as our chemical “body burden”). Various states,  through grants from the Centers for Disease Control, are working on biomonitoring. The Healthy Californians Biomonitoring Program is a groundbreaking effort that calls for the first-ever state funded biomonitoring program in the United States.

While this precedent-setting bill,sponsored by The Breast Cancer Fund and Commonweal, gained the support of over 50 diverse organizations, it failed to pass in 2004. It will be reintroduced in early 2005.

For more information go to www.breastcancerfund.org.

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