Nationwide Health Tracking Act

[Guest guest]

http://www.nature.com/nature/

Nature 416, 668 (2002)

Clinton bill calls for revamp of chronic-disease tracking

VIRGINIA GEWIN

[WASHINGTON] Moves are under way to transform the patchy and underfunded

system with which US public-health authorities track chronic diseases and

their causes.

Plans to upgrade the system were discussed last week at a meeting held at

the Institute of Medicine in Washington DC. Delegates have high hopes for

the safe passage of the Nationwide Health Tracking Act, which was introduced

to Congress last month by Senators Hillary Clinton (Democrat, New York) and

Harry Reid (Democrat, Nevada). It advocates spending $270 million on a new

nationwide environmental-health tracking system to integrate local, state

and federal public-health schemes, and is likely to attract bipartisan

support. US environmental-health activities are currently split between

dozens of agencies.

Chronic diseases such as cancer and asthma are leading causes of death in

the United States. " Rising rates of chronic disease require us to act now, "

Clinton told the meeting.

The need to upgrade the monitoring network was raised in 2000 in a report by

the Pew Environmental Health Commission, a public-health think-tank based at

Hopkins University in Baltimore, land. Monitoring schemes received

$30 million for the current fiscal year, but experts say that a successful

nationwide system would need the larger sum proposed in the Clinton-Reid

bill.

The bill proposes establishing five biomedical monitoring laboratories and

five environmental-health centres of excellence. The network could also tap

into expertise at the Environmental Protection Agency and the US Geological

Survey. The latter, for example, already uses remote-sensing satellites to

track dust storms that transport heavy metals, pathogens and pesticides.

http://pewenvirohealth.jhsph.edu