Evaluation of Spatial Relationships between Health and the Environment: The Rapid Inquiry Facility

Beale, Linda; Hodgson, Susan; Abellán, Juan J.; LeFevre, Sam; Järup, Lars

doi:10.1289/ehp.0901849

Cited by 47 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 31 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…RIF is embedded in a geographical information system (GIS) that requires ArcGIS and connects to an external database of geocoded health and population data, and is especially useful for spatial analyses around sources of presumed environmental hazards, and in small areas 22 23. With the RIF programme, we produced maps of indirectly standardised disease risks (ie, SMRs) with the Costa Rican population as reference, for men and women separately.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mesoamerican nephropathy: geographical distribution and time trends of chronic kidney disease mortality between 1970 and 2012 in Costa Rica

Wesseling¹,

Joode

Crowe

et al. 2015

Occup Environ Med

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Objectives To characterise geographical distribution and time trends of chronic kidney disease (CKD) mortality in the context of the epidemic of Mesoamerican nephropathy (MeN), likely related to occupational heat stress and other, unknown, factors. Method Vital statistics (1970-2012) provided deaths from CKD and unspecified renal failure. Data of four censuses were extrapolated to derive person-years by sex and 10-year age groups for the seven provinces and 81 counties. SMRs were compared for three time periods between provinces and between counties, with national rates as reference. To assess time trends, age-specific and age-standardised mortality rates were computed for 5-year periods. Results During 1970-2012, 3843 men and 2452 women died from CKD. In the Guanacaste province, the SMR for 1997-2012 was four-fold in men and twofold in women. In Guana-caste, CKD mortality increased from the mid-1970s in men, and mid-1980s in women. Age-standardised rates per 100.000 in men aged ≥30 increased from 5.8 in the early seventies to 75.0 in 2007-2012, compared to 5.9 to 16.2 in the rest of Costa Rica. For women, rates increased from 4.5 to 20.7 in Guana-caste versus 4.2 to 9.7 in the rest of the country. Within Guana-caste, there was marked spatial variation in mortality between counties, with patterns being consistent between time periods but different for men and women. Conclusions Guanacaste is a heterogeneous CKD "hot spot," affecting mostly men, but to lesser extent also women. CKD seemed high already four decades ago in the province. These findings are pertinent for etiologic research.

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mesoamerican nephropathy: geographical distribution and time trends of chronic kidney disease mortality between 1970 and 2012 in Costa Rica

Wesseling¹,

Joode

Crowe

et al. 2015

Occup Environ Med

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Another milestone noted was the introduction of environmental public health indicators, measures, and software tools for assessing health outcomes, exposure, or environmental hazards. 21 Using more refined health-level data, Beale et al 74 and Ball et al 35 demonstrated the utility of using a geographic information system tool (The Rapid Inquiry Facility) for assessing spatial relationships between selected health outcomes and diseases. Aggregated health data, which are supplied by state and local health departments, represent the majority of environmental public health indicators and measures.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Decade of Environmental Public Health Tracking (2002-2012)

Kearney

Namulanda

Qualters

et al. 2015

Journal of Public Health Management and Practice

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background The creation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Environmental Public Health Tracking Program spawned an invigorating and challenging approach toward implementing the nation’s first population-based, environmental disease tracking surveillance system. More than 10 years have passed since its creation and an abundance of peer-reviewed articles have been published spanning a broad variety of public health topics related primarily to the goal of reducing diseases of environmental origin. Objective To evaluate peer-reviewed literature related to Environmental Public Health Tracking during 2002-2012, recognize major milestones and challenges, and offer recommendations. Design A narrative overview was conducted using titles and abstracts of peer-reviewed articles, key word searches, and science-based search engine databases. Main Outcomes Eighty published articles related to “health tracking” were identified and categorized according to 4 crossed-central themes. The Science and Research theme accounted for the majority of published articles, followed by Policy and Practice, Collaborations Among Health and Environmental Programs, and Network Development. Conclusions Overall, progress was reported in the areas of data linkage, data sharing, surveillance methods, and network development. Ongoing challenges included formulating better ways to establish the connections between health and the environment, such as using biomonitoring, public water systems, and private well water data. Recommendations for future efforts include use of data to inform policy and practice and use of electronic health records data for environmental health surveillance.

show abstract

“…In some cases, the dose may not be a simple function of exposure level multiplied by exposure duration, but rather a function of the frequency of peak exposures above a certain level (impulse exposures). For exposures that vary spatially and with time, geographic information systems and recording subject locations via mobile telephones are being introduced as important tools (Beale et al, 2010).…”

Section: Exposure Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%