Welcome to EPHT - Neelam Iqbal

Hello all and welcome to the Environmental Public Health Tracking (EPHT) Community of Practice (CoP) on Knowledge Hub. The work shown in this CoP is managed by the Environmental Epidemiology Group (EEG) within Public Health England (PHE).

What is Environmental Public Health Tracking (EPHT)?

EPHT involves the ongoing collection, integration, analysis and interpretation of data about environmental hazards, exposure to those hazards and the related the human health effects. Through EPHT, we aim to develop comprehensive public health surveillance and environmental health tracking systems for toxic hazards and health effects, providing the essential context for risk assessment. Surveillance of risk factors for environment-related diseases is essential to inform public health interventions targeting both communicable and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). In an age of increasing complex data and information needs, sophisticated information systems are crucial to integrate data and provide intelligence about hazards, exposures and resulting health outcomes. 

Over the past few years, we have been working towards the prevention of ill health through:

1. Interventions on the known causal effects of pollutants through surveillance
2. Exploring further causal links of disease associated with weather, nutritional, social and economic factors through public health research.

What we do

The team are involved in response, research, public heath surveillance, development and delivery of information systems, production of national guidance and capacity building. We also provide important public health advice locally, nationally and internationally when needed.

You can see examples of work we’ve done, reports produced, and national guidance developed on a variety of topics in our library page. These include:

• An update on all our projects in our latest EPHT report
• Environmental Public Health Surveillance System (EPHSS)
• Indoor air pollution
• Outdoor air pollution 
• National water fluoridation and health effects monitoring
• Lead exposure in children surveillance
• Chemicals in private water supplies
• Health registers following extreme events
• Guidance for investigating clusters of non-infectious diseases

Teaching and training

We teach on a number of courses and train a variety of professionals including Field Epidemiology Training Programme (FETP) fellows, Public Health Specialty Registrars and Environmental Epidemiology colleagues from other countries and organisations.

You can find examples of work that FETP fellows have completed with us in the library and here is a recent blog written by our current FETP fellow regarding her work on COVID-19 Surveillance in The Gambia last year. In the Wiki page, there are also recordings of training and presentations that the group  have carried out at various times.

Join our group for further updates on the work we’re involved in.