Through a joint project with the Chesapeake Bay
Foundation, the
Center for a
Livable Future at the Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public
Health has released Linking Ecological and Human
Health: The Chesapeake Bay Health Indicators Project, a
report that underscores the need for increased assessment
and knowledge of the links between environmental quality
and protection of public health. The Chesapeake Bay is an
ecological treasure that drives the region's economy, feeds
its people and receives its wastewaters. The report
examines how the growing human population has altered the
bay's ecological systems, putting both the ecosystem and
human health at risk.
"The findings of this report are of vital concern to
everyone in the bay region. It is essential that we improve
our ability to identify and track sources of pollution in
the Chesapeake Bay, as well as [evaluate] the potential
risks to both human health and the health of the bay," said
Kim Coble, Maryland executive director of the Chesapeake
Bay Foundation. "CLF's study underscores the need to
identify emerging hazards in order to define research needs
and strengthen the scientific basis for environmental and
health policies," she said.
Important advances in monitoring environmental quality
— including CBF's annual state of the bay report
— have been made since cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay
began in the 1980s. However, much less progress has been
made in assessing the relationship between bay and human
health.
Linking Ecological and Human Health: The Chesapeake
Bay Health Indicators Project, the initial study of the
Chesapeake Bay Health Indicators Project, gives an overview
of human and ecological stressors in the Chesapeake region
and presents three examples of indicators that measure
problems for both ecosystem and human health: drinking
water contaminants (total trihalomethanes in public
drinking water supplies); microbial risks in surface waters
(fecal coliform contamination at bathing beaches and in
recreational and urban waterways) and persistent toxic
pollutants (mercury and PCB contaminant levels in fish
tissue).
Although the project's study revealed no immediate
threat to human health from any of these indicators, it
clearly documented their presence in the Chesapeake and
demonstrated the need to track them. This has been a pilot
investigation, and these indicators offer only a small
sample of potential public health indicators for the
region. In the future, measures such as these may be part
of a national tracking network of indicators to measure
environmental progress, identify emerging hazards, shape
research and strengthen the scientific basis for
environmental and health policies.
"These indicators represent an important step forward
in recognizing and understanding the links between the
quality of the environment and public health," said the
report's co-author, Thomas Burke, professor of
health
policy and management and co-director of the Center for
Excellence in Environmental Public Health Tracking at the
Bloomberg School.
Based on this investigation, the authors present the
following recommendations for developing a tracking tool
for joint indicators of both ecosystem and public
health.
Assess information needs to assure
effective coverage of the watershed and to meet the data
needs of state and county health agencies and environmental
officials.
Expand the list of indicators to
include a broader range of contaminants, additional
exposure pathways and improved measures of population
exposure levels.
Enhance reporting of public health
outcomes, such as waterborne and food-borne outbreaks, to
assure early problem recognition and to safeguard public
health.
Coordinate efforts with the EPA
Environmental Indicators Initiative and the CDC National
Environmental Public Health Tracking Network.
Develop a formal strategy for
systematic, regular reporting of public health indicators
through a public health report card for the bay region.
The Chesapeake Bay is the region's defining natural
resource. The report's authors believe improved tracking of
sources of pollution, exposures to pollutants and their
effects on health is an essential component of an
integrated approach to protecting both the bay and the
public's health.