COMMENT - TOWARD A COORDINATED SYSTEM FOR THE SURVEILLANCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL-HEALTH HAZARDS

The rapid increases in the numbers and quantities of chemicals release d into the environment have been accompanied by a lack of adequate pre release testing for adverse health outcomes. Environmental health surv eillance is used both to track changes in exposures that are known to have adverse health effects and to identify previously unrecognized ha zards. Surveillance data can directly aid in the design of interventio ns to reduce the level of hazardous agents in the environment or the o pportunities for human contact with them. Components of an ideal envir onmental health surveillance system are discussed. For well-recognized hazards, databases related to exposure alone are adequate. However, f or uncovering previously unrecognized associations, linkage between ex posure and outcome databases that are collected or aggregated at the s ame geographic scale and for regions of relatively homogeneous exposur es are needed.