Modernizing Environmental Public Health Tracking to Advance Environmental Health Surveillance CDC RFA EH22-2202 - Almost a quarter of global deaths are attributed to the environments where people work and live, and environmental factors can play a significant role in the incidence and severity of disease. South Carolina experiences a high burden of disease related to the environmental conditions of the state. Children who live along the Insterstate-95 corridor are at increased risk of hospitalization due to asthma compared to other children in South Carolina. Only 31% of South Carolina’s population is covered by 100% smoke-free laws, which is a contributor to the high rates of lung cancer (leading cause of cancer mortality in the state), stroke (second leading cause of death in the state), and infant low birthweight (5th highest rate of low birthweight infants in the nation). The state’s diverse geography and climate meant that citizens are potentially exposed to extreme conditions in the form high heat, coastal and inland flooding, drought, wildfires, severe storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, and occasional snowfall. The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SC DHEC) is uniquely positioned to conduct the activities outlined in the ‘Modernizing Environmental Public Health Tracking to Advance Environmental Health Surveillance’ funding opportunity to create the South Carolina Environmental Public Health Tracking (SC EPHT) Program, as we are a centralized state agency that houses both state’s Public Health and Environmental Affairs departments with established working relationships with all major health and environmental stakeholders across the state. The Bureau of Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention (BCD&IP) is leading the efforts to establish a SC EPHT program to assist in bureau and agency efforts to address the state’s environmental contributors to acute and chronic health conditions. BCD&IP contains the Office of Epidemiology, Analytics, and Data Visualization, a division dedicated to collecting, analyzing, and disseminating health data for all audiences; their expertise in these fields and existing systems will enable the SC EPHT program to complete all the necessary tasks to ensure public access to EPH data with the first program year. Input from BCD&IP’s Research & Planning division will assist in continuous quality improvement efforts, provide a health equity focus on all data products, and facilitate community partnership development. Through continuous quality improvement, assessment, and evaluation, SC EPHT staff will work with existing partners to drive public health action and achieve impact. Partners include Bureau of Air Quality, Bureau of Water, Vital Records, South Carolina Central Cancer Registry, South Carolina Public Health Lab, Bureau of Maternal and Child Health, South Carolina Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office, South Carolina Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, Division of Tobacco Prevention and Control, Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, Division of Oral Health, Division of Injury and Substance Abuse Prevention, Division of Diabetes and Heart Disease, Office of Information Technology, University of South Carolina, Division of Acute Disease Epidemiology, Public Health Preparedness, Public Health Strategy & Continuous Improvement, Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Environmental Health Services, Ocean and Coastal Resource Management, and South Carolina Commission for Minority Affairs. The goals of the SC EPHT program are to reduce environmental exposures and related health effects and reduce environmental health disparities through use of environmental public health data in developing programs and policies and prioritizing interventions and populations to address health disparities throught South Carolina.
