NC Environmental Public Health Tracking (EPHT) Program: Modernizing Environmental Public Health Tracking to Advance Environmental Health Surveillance - The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NC DHHS) is applying for a new, 5-year, CDC funding opportunity to expand the NC Environmental Health Data Dashboard (EHDD) into an NC Environmental Public Health Tracking (EPHT) Program, housed in the Division of Public Health, Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch. The NC EHDD has been under development since 2019, responding to requests from environmental justice (EJ) community groups and local health departments (LHD) to bring together NC community, environmental and health data into one publicly accessible space using the CDC National EPHT Network framework. This expansion will move North Carolina towards health equity and climate justice by providing easily accessible data to inform public health action. Nationally, this proposal responds to the CDC Data Modernization Initiative, by creating collaborative, connected, and response ready environmental health (EH) data systems for our state. Locally, activities respond to needs outlined in the Healthy Carolinians 2030 Report, NC Executive Order 80, NC Executive Order 246, and NC Cancer Research Advisory Panel Recommendations. Component A, Capacity Building ($1 million per year) In partnership with the State Center for Health Statistics, NC DETECT and the Division of Information Technology, we will modernize our existing data systems by creating automated exchanges of surveillance data for regular data updates of vital statistics, cancer, emergency department, and hospitalization data to the EHDD. We will build the capacity of the Private Well, Chemical Preparedness and Response, Climate and Health programs, and the NC Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) by creating data visualizations to improve data timeliness and communication of EH issues to the public through an interactive, user-friendly interface. We will coordinate partnerships with key stakeholders, including members of NC EJ communities, by holding quarterly NC EPHT Advisory Committee meetings. Component B, Emerging Topics ($1 million per year) NC EPHT Program will work with the NC Wastewater Surveillance Program and the On-site Water Protection (OSWP) branch to modernize EH surveillance by creating a unified surveillance system for septic systems, private wells, and wastewater monitoring. Information gaps on septic system and private well locations and conditions hinder efforts to increase access to water to provide for our residents’ basic human rights to clean water. To foster climate resilience, NC EPHT program will partner with the OSWP, Private Well and Health program, and LHDs to digitize existing permits and use predictive modeling to estimate locations of unrecorded septic systems and wells in flood prone regions of the state. Field technicians will inspect properties to validate the model and record the status and condition of existing structures. To prioritize placement of new utilities in EJ communities experiencing groundwater contamination, we will measure PFAS and other contaminants in wells and septic systems. Component C, Portal Development ($1 million per year) To enhance the utility of the existing NC EHDD, we will add additional datasets and functionalities to comply with CDC EPHT portal requirements, including the capability to download the data from the portal, layer the datasets in ArcGIS for deeper analysis of the potential impacts of environmental exposures on health of vulnerable populations, and to customize the view for a specific address. With input from an EJ and Climate Resilience Subcommittee and in partnership with NC DEQ and UNC Chapel Hill, we will create a state-specific EJ index to identify historically marginalized communities with multiple environmental hazards.
