LINKING ENVIRONMENTAL AND HEALTH-CARE DATABASES - ASSESSING THE HEALTH-EFFECTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL-POLLUTANTS

The assessment of pollutant effects on health status requires the merg ence and analysis of two different databases: pollution measurements a nd health care information. This paper compares two subsets of these d ata: Ohio Environmental Protection Agency data on ambient air pollutan ts and Ohio Medicare data on respiratory diseases. Small area analysis was performed to assess statewide variations in hospital admission ra tes for respiratory diseases. The ambient air pollutant levels for eac h small area were compared to the variations in respiratory disease ra tes. Five groups of diseases correlated with pollutant levels. In addi tion, pollutant levels were significantly associated with medical comp lications. This study demonstrates the feasibility and benefit of link ing environmental and health care databases and suggests the need for a more comprehensive, automated analysis of more pollutants and diseas es.