Public Access to Environmental Health Information

Silent Spring Institute, Newtonville MA

Investigators

Abstract

DESCRIPTION: Silent Spring Institute is an independent, nonprofit research organization dedicated to investigating relationships between the environment and women's health. The Institute conducts multi-disciplinary research encompassing epidemiology, health surveillance, environmental science, spatial analysis and health policy. The Institute is seeking an Information Systems grant in order to make its research database available to researchers and the public, including historical environmental health data collected during the Cape Cod Breast Cancer and Environment Study - a unique long-term effort that includes breast cancer surveillance and multi-disciplinary etiologic studies. The proposal is entitled 'Public Access to Environmental Health Information', reflecting the long term goal of ensuring a sound, versatile platform for the dissemination of data and information generated by the Institute. The proposed system, the 'Cape Cod Health and Environment Information System (HEIS)', will be map-based, and will be available via the Institute's recently expanded e-resources website. The public will be able to view, browse, query and 'identify' features on the map interface, as well as perform more involved analyses. The datasets available will include pubic water quality, aerial pesticide applications, land use from 1951 - present day, breast cancer incidence by census tract and town, other cancer incidence data, and several other datasets. The target audience for the system includes researchers (who currently comprise 24% of our website traffic), and the general public, including activists, health professionals, women living with breast cancer, students, and individuals interested in the environment and health currently 60% of our website traffic). The region addressed is primarily southeastern Massachusetts, but the data and information is expected to be of interest to a much wider geographic area, and the system will be a model that can be adapted for use in other regions. The system will provide a forum for the dissemination of results as well as sharing data - and future plans include releasing results from the Institute's Household Exposure Study and non-identifiable data from the Cape Cod Breast Cancer and Environment study case-control dataset and questionnaire.