Massachusetts’s Environmental Public Health Tracking

Massachusetts’s Environmental Public Health Tracking (EPHT) website, launched as part of a CDC pilot program in 2008, provides data and visualization tools that are useful in detecting environmental health risks and trends. Users can view rates of asthma, heart attacks, heat stress, and other health conditions exacerbated by climate change. While not all of its tools are related to the public health impact of climate change, the tracker’s tools do allow users – whether individuals, public health officials, or policy makers – to analyze health data and trends over time at the state, county, or census tract level. Other notable features include the High Impact Assessment, which can be used to assess the health impact of proposals, ranging from transportation projects to land use policies.