EHC Projects

All EHC recipients have projects on using environmental health (EH) data. These projects establish and strengthen procedures to build core capacity around data. The projects focus on capacity to use existing data or to collect new EH data with a focus on

• Identifying, characterizing, and mitigating EH hazards.
• Evaluating the effectiveness and impact of EH interventions.

Recipient activities can include

• Gathering data for identifying EH hazards.
• Improving or updating information system hardware and software.
• Training staff on informatics, data analysis, and data visualization.
• Building or strengthening partnerships to share EH data.

Developing processes for using EH data to inform decisions about programs and services.

Recipient projects focus on

• Improving access to safe drinking water including selection, implementation, and evaluation of interventions to address risks to human health in
  • Private wells.
  • Small community water systems.
• Developing comprehensive and effective programs to prevent hazards and harmful exposures in
  • Treated recreational water facilities (swimming pools, spas, water parks, spray fountains).
  • Untreated waters designated for recreational use and managed by EH service programs (marine, estuarine, Great Lakes, inland waters).

Recipient projects can strengthen the capacity of additional EH program and service areas. New projects added during the cooperative agreement can include safe water management plans, rodent control, food safety, exposure assessments, outbreak investigations, and the range of EH programs identified by the UNCOVER EH practice and workforce assessment.

Recipients can also work on projects to enhance capacity to address emerging or priority EH hazards and issues in their communities. Projects focus on

• Supporting EH response, recovery, and mitigation efforts related to covered disasters or emergencies, including the consequences of Hurricanes Florence and Michael, Typhoon Mangkhut, Super Typhoon Yutu, and wildfires and earthquakes occurring in calendar year 2018, as well as tornadoes and floods occurring in calendar year 2019.
• Using electronic health record data to identify unusual occurrence of pediatric cancer and potential environmental exposures.
• Assessing environment-related mitigation strategy implementation in communities disproportionately affected by COVID-19.

Recipients can add new projects to enhance capacity to address other specific priority or emerging EH hazards and issues over the course of the 5-year cooperative agreement. Potential project areas include harmful algal blooms, plumbing hazards in building hot and cold water piping systems, extreme weather events, EH issues related to homelessness, and others.