The Unpredictable Floods: Health Impact in Kentucky (Poster)

The Environmental Public Health Tracking Network is a federally funded program with 23 state and local participating health departments, which allows the public and policy decision makers to track exposures to environmental hazards as they relate to health conditions in their region.  This environmental public health data linkage project for Kentucky looks at the impact of flood events on the incidence of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) from 2006 to 2012 for all 120 Kentucky counties.  In our results, we observed unpredictability and annual fluctuations both in asthma/COPD hospitalizations and flood incidents.  The years with the highest hospitalization rates were 2006 and 2009, while the highest number of floods were in 2010 and 2011.  This study examined and will continue to examine the impact of flooding on asthma and COPD- related hospitalizations, as part of a partnership between the Kentucky Department for Public Health and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO).  This data linkage project is an example of the type of investigation that is possible through the use of the emerging and growing Environmental Public Health Tracking Network.