New York HSEES Data Support Emergency Response, Promote Safety and Protect Public Health

摘要

Surveillance is an important activity that yields a body of information and provides data that can be used to direct educational and outreach activities in multiple directions. The New York Hazardous Substances Emergency Events Surveillance (HSEES) Program is one of fourteen state-based programs funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that collects data on acute releases of non-petroleum hazardous substances and their public health impacts. New York HSEES staff receives and consolidates release notifications from numerous sources each workday. Staff follows up on these notifications with prompt data collection by gathering updated release reports, reviewing electronic media and conducting telephone investigations to develop and complete each event record. The New York HSEES data set for 2000-2006 includes more than 7,700 event records that characterize hazardous substances spill/release activity and the public health consequences statewide. Through daily systematic review of hazardous substances releases against the background of aggregated data, staff is able to identify atypical patterns or sentinel events. The data are used to alert public health offices and others to help ensure that the network of persons that needs to be aware of an event is notified and has the available information. These data provide information used to support and enhance employee and responder training, emergency preparedness and public health response. The data have also led to numerous partnering opportunities that are supporting preparedness and public health, benefiting not only the industrial sector, but also communities and schools. Throughout these activities, staff works to support hazardous materials response, promote safety, protect public health and achieve the HSEES goal of reducing the incidence of hazardous material spills/releases and the associated morbidity and mortality. These outcomes exhibit the value of surveillance of hazardous substances spills/releases to the residents of New York State.