Program Description:
The New Mexico Environmental Public Health Tracking Program (EPHTP) participates with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other national, state, and local partners to develop a national and state surveillance system that tracks environmental hazards and potentially related diseases. Some future goals and proposed initiatives for inclusion in or improvement of the New Mexico EPHTP include

• Establishing myocardial infarction surveillance data,
• Improving existing data for vital statistics birth outcomes, childhood blood lead levels, and asthma surveillance and hospitalizations,
• Continuing to develop cancer incidence data,
• Improving the existing birth defects surveillance system,
• Tracking particulate matter and ozone in New Mexico and linking it with asthma and cardiovascular data,
• Tracking drinking water contaminant data and linking it with health outcomes such as arsenic and bladder cancer,
• Using satellite data from NASA’s Public Health Applications in Remote Sensing (PHAiRS) air quality models for particulates, pollen, and ozone to conduct linkage analyses and to develop warning systems for wildfires and heat waves in New Mexico,
• Addressing additional core tracking health, exposure, and environmental measures as identified by CDC, NMEPHT or both, and
• Using biomonitoring data for metals and endocrine disruptors for exposure assessment.

The New Mexico EPHTP will include the following core measures on its network: stics.

• Asthma and heart attack,
• Carbon monoxide poisonings,
• Cancer,
• Blood lead levels in children,
• Birth defects,
• Drinking water contaminants
• Air quality, and
• Vital statistics.

The New Mexico EPHTP will also include satellite images of New Mexico on its network for use in Environmental Health Alerts, such as

• Wildfires,
• Pollen,
• Vegetation greenness,
• Land temperature, and
• Dust forecasts.