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:
-
Interventions on the known causal effects of pollutants
through surveillance
-
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.